What is Farm to School?

In this episode, Rick and Michelle explore what the term "Farm to School" means.

Transcript

Transcript: what is farm to school

00:00:09 Rick

Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of the Farm to School podcast, where you will hear stories of how you thrive and farmers prosper when we grow, cook, and eat delicious, nutritious local food.

00:00:20 Michelle

We're your hosts, Michelle Markstein.

00:00:22 Rick

And Rick Sherman, we're a farm to school coordinators in the state of Oregon.

00:00:26 Michelle

This episode is a departure from our typical format where we interview someone because we got so many requests from listeners to do a short primer on what is farm to school and school gardens.

00:00:37 Rick

Yeah. What? What is that? Right, Michelle?

00:00:39 Michelle

Yeah. Good luck.

00:00:40 Michelle

Rick, what is it? No.

00:00:42 Rick

Simply put, it's getting local food into the school cafeteria and teaching kids about where that food comes from, but it's really so much more. Not a quick answer so, It's an ever evolving concept that you and I are still trying to figure out after 15 years in the field working with each other, get it in the field, farm to school,

So what? So what is farm to school?

00:01:08 Michelle

Well, you mentioned farm to school and school garden programs. They're really any combination of activities related to kids engaged in learning about and eating local foods so farm to school actually can be misleading because in this case farm really refers to.

00:01:23 Michelle

Do all varieties and forms of foods that are grown, caught, harvested, raised, or processed locally, so local foods to kids?

00:01:33 Michelle

Meaning from the farm, all those things include everything from fresh apples to zucchini to frozen, dried or canned produce, local dairy fluid, milk, cheese, yogurt, whole grains, even locally processed foods that are served more as the center of the plate menu items. So.. (BARK)

00:01:54 Rick

Sorry, that was our office Assistant, Odie. Go ahead, continue with the show.

00:01:57 Michelle

well, I was just thinking things like Tamales, Yaki soba noodles, pink shrimp smoked Beef.

00:02:04 Rick

Now, you said seafood items. Pink shrimp. I have a really good example. We have our farm to school, grant that School districts take advantage of getting reimbursed in our state for locally grown or raised food, and so we always try to say, hey, use some of these items like seafood and people say, oh, it's too expensive.

00:02:32 Rick

But on a school lunch, when a school lunch might cost 5 bucks and senator played item like shrimp, you know, that might be take up a good chunk of that of of that cost and so. But The thing is we have money to reimburse for it. So we had one school district, Bend Lapine a few years ago, they did a whole thing, they spent all their money on seafood for one year.  And they had they had a chef that developed recipes. They had a I think, a fish Taco truck at their high schools. They had locally caught Sole. That's SOLE fish. And they had, yeah, shrimp.  And you would think the argument is like if you know where bend is in Oregon, it's in the middle of the state. It's in the high desert. I don't know how many miles from the ocean.

00:03:26 Michelle

I’m going to say it's probably several hour drive from the coast.

00:03:30 Rick

It is probably about three or four 4 hour drive.  And they're in the desert. High desert. So they they're the kids there don't have a lot of opportunity for fresh seafood, but they just loved it because they were exposed to it.

00:03:35 Michelle

They really loved it and they played it up. They called it boat to school so, that's a great example of how farm to school is really. That farm is broad, but schools is a broad term that's used, too.

00:03:58 Rick

Yes, schools, it's we say farm to school because it's a it's a national term. You know, our national farm to school network and such. But we have shied away from it in the past because we at the Department of Education and our Child Nutrition programs is just that we offer meals in the schools, but we also offer meals and things and things that aren't anywhere near a school. They're like childcare pre-K there's other other places that do that. So we we say, farm to Child nutrition a lot.

00:04:36 Michelle

So like what else? Like after school programs, summer programs?

00:04:40 Rick

Yeah, after school programs like boys and girls, clubs, camps, all kinds of things, summer food service that are in parks.

00:04:50 Michelle

So yeah, so the unifying concept is they all participate in what's called a child nutrition program where they serve things like that. They can't just serve anything they want. The USDA puts out federal requirements for the meal content and the quality of the meals.

00:05:08 Rick

Yes, and that's why we have nutrition service or food service directors that figure out and navigate that and they that there's there's many things it's easy to put fruits and veggies on the school lunch plate, but other foods can be a little bit harder to develop to put on the tray. 
 There's requirements such as fat content, saturated fat, sodium, protein, whole grains that need to be on the tray or plate.

00:05:35 Michelle

Right. And that is why one of many reasons nutrition school, nutrition service folks are heroes takes so much to figure out how to do all that and layer in how to do that with locally produced and processed foods as well. But we also know it's not enough to put local foods on the lunch line, right. Kids need to know where their food comes from and then they're more willing to try it and eat it right? And like, let's be real. If kids eat it, schools will buy it. So the whole local procurement and agriculture, food based education is really a systems approach.

00:06:10 Rick

Yeah. And that's and that's where school gardens come in. I get, you know, that's where we can teach the kids about how they grow their food in the school garden. And I get, I get a question all the time of, oh, great, a school garden. What does a typical school garden look like? And it's there's no such thing as a cookie cutter thing for a school garden, a typical there is no typical school garden. It could be almost anything, it could be peas in a clay pot on a window sill. You know, a windowsill garden. You know, because there's no room. It could be hydroponic garden, which means growing things in in water baths. It could be outdoor learning spaces that accommodate whole classrooms where they grew, grow fruits and veggies they could.

00:06:57 Rick

There could be native gardens or pollinator gardens. A native garden like native plants. I mean, I'm talking about there, you know, like plants that were here forever, so to develop those, there's even a full on a few huge farms that are like 6 acres that are in half a dozen school districts where it's on school property and they grow and develop food.

00:07:24 Michelle

That's amazing. Yeah, I've even seen, like, where they have places where you can harvest and processed produce or cook like a lot of school gardens have pizza.

00:07:35 Rick

Ovens or an outdoor kitchen? Yes, yes.

00:07:37 Michelle

Ah, that's so cool.

00:07:40 Rick

Yeah, there's there's some examples of that in Oregon. If you were to ask me, you can find those. And a lot of people use our grant dollars to develop those spaces too, like for outdoor kitchens and things like that. So anything to teach the kids how to grow process, make their own food, it helps.

00:08:01 Rick

So that's it, everybody. This is just a little taste of the amazing ways farm to school and school gardens happen.

00:08:07 Michelle

Yeah. And while they look different in every single community across the country, farm to school and school gardens are really all grounded in shared values of community, health and well-being and prosperous local food systems.

00:08:20 Michelle

So thanks everyone for tuning in.

00:08:23 Rick

Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Armed to school podcast was written, directed and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Markesteyn and was made possible by a grant by the United States Department of Agriculture.

00:08:33 Michelle

The content and ideas on the farm school podcasts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University, Oregon Department of Education, or the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA, Oregon Department of Education and Oregon State University are Equal Employment Opportunity employers.

00:08:49 Rick

Do you want to learn more about Farm to school? Check out other episodes, show notes, and much more rootopia.com. Rootopia is a project of Oregon State University.

00:09:04 Michelle

Or do you have an idea for a future podcast?  Please e-mail us at info@rootopia.com.

00:09:11 Michelle

Bye everyone.

00:09:12 Rick

Thanks, everybody. See you next time.