Sunny Side Up: A Bright Future for Farm to School From Policy to Plate; A Conversation With NFSN’s Sunny Baker

What do karaoke, universal school meals, and a stripe of gray hair have in common? Sunny Baker. In this episode, we sit down with the National Farm to School Network’s very own Senior Director of Programs and Policy to talk about the wins, woes, and what’s next for school food. From pandemic lessons to policy dreams, Sunny brings the fire, fun—and the future of farm to school.

Transcript

Transcript

Sunny Side Up: A Bright Future for Farm to School From Policy to Plate; A Conversation With NFSN’s Sunny Baker

What do karaoke, universal school meals, and a stripe of gray hair have in common? Sunny Baker. In this episode, we sit down with the National Farm to School Network’s very own Senior Director of Programs and Policy to talk about the wins, woes, and what’s next for school food. From pandemic lessons to policy dreams, Sunny brings the fire, fun—and the future of farm to school.

00:00:05 Michelle

Welcome to the farm to school podcast, where you will hear stories of how youth thrive and farmers prosper when we learn how to grow, cook and eat delicious, nutritious local foods and schools across the country.

00:00:16 Rick

And the world. Hi everybody. We're your host. That's Michelle.

00:00:20 Michelle

And this is Rick Sherman.

00:00:21 Michelle

And we are so excited. Sunny 's here with us today.

00:00:24 Rick

We if there's, let me just say this, if there's one person...

00:00:27 Michelle

It's your podcast, you can say whatever you want.

00:00:28 Rick

It's our podcast.

00:00:33 Rick

But anyway, if there's a name out there that typifies the person. We have Sunny Baker with us here and she has the most sunniest personality I've ever met. She just is perfect. It's, well… Look at the thumbnail. We have a picture of her. So Sunny  Baker is with the National farm to school network. She is our third national farm to school network guest. And it's purposeful. It's on purpose. And we'll tell you why. But our first question is Sunny, this is this is a new segment. What is your go to karaoke song?

00:01:10 Sunny Baker

Well, I did just add Criminal by Fiona Apple to that list. It's really about vibes. You gotta read the room. I have a whole notes app of karaoke songs.

00:01:15 Rick

OK. Well, that's good to know.

00:01:22 Michelle

Like for different types of vibes.

00:01:24 Sunny Baker

Depends on who people are. Cause you want something engaging.

00:01:27 Rick

Min’s Sweet Caroline that's audience participation one, so yeah.

00:01:30 Sunny Baker

Yes. No, that's a really good one.

00:01:32 Michelle

Do you have the yacht vibes? Gosh.

00:01:35 Sunny Baker

Seal seal.

00:01:36 Rick

OK. Well thanks.

00:01:37 Sunny Baker

For that I had a colleague do Kiss by Rose. Amazing. We do karaoke at NFS then. Well, when we're together.

00:01:43 Michelle

And that sounds like very future. And Rick was just gonna say this is not a tarot reading past, present, future, but, well, it's a podcast reading.

00:01:51 Rick

It is kind of well our first if you go back with us on our way back machine, we first one of our first guests was Anupama Joshi. She was the co-founder of the National Farm to school network and we.

00:01:59 Michelle

Yeah.

00:02:03 Rick

About the history of where, how that all happened, Genesis, yes. And then we had Miguel Villarreal and we, we he was he was like where what we're doing now. And like, you know like in in the boots on the ground what we're doing.

00:02:13 Michelle

It's great.

00:02:22 Rick

And now we have Sunny  Baker, who is the Policy Director. Is that your title?

00:02:27 Sunny Baker

Senior Director, Programs and Policies, yeah.

00:02:29 Rick

OK, the new policy was in there somewhere. So thank you for thanks for correcting me, Sunny . That's perfect. So you deal with all the part and you're going to tell us about some of the things that's happening right now with in the future and going looking forward with National Fund school network.

00:02:47 Michelle

Yeah. Well, can we look forward to, I want some I want some bright spots? Yeah. I'm so excited about the future of farm to school. The time is now because I think we are seeing the.

00:02:58 Sunny Baker

That this is the moment to really root in to these core elements of the school.

00:03:03 Rick

Why? Why now? What's so special about now?

00:03:06 Sunny Baker

Well, we saw in the pandemic that our food system can so easily not serve just basic needs of humans. So it does feel like the era to really get right. This idea of local and regional food systems. And what better place to do that? And in school cafeterias and early child care centers too.

00:03:33 Rick

OK. And so you're in town now for another conference. We're actually as we're recording this, we're sitting outside in the beautiful summer day, not really it's overcast, but in the Oregon Garden. And we're at the Oregon farm to School Institute. So you came as a guest. How did this happen? How did you get here for this.

00:03:52 Sunny Baker

Yeah, I was in town for the resistance and Resilience in the Food Systems Movement Conference in Portland.

00:03:59 Michelle

Is amazing that that happened. 

00:04:00 Sunny Baker

It was so wonderful. It was like a really heartfelt gathering. And then I got to come down and be with my farm to school people here in Silverton, because of the farm to school institute is happening this week and it has been such an utter joy to be in this community. Y'all are like exceptional here in Oregon.

00:04:11 Rick

Well, thank you for that.

00:04:24 Sunny Baker

Like there's, there's a lot of amazingness happening..

00:04:27 Michelle

Ohh stop.

00:04:28 Rick

Well, we think we sometimes think we're pretty special too, but we try to make this. It's not an Oregon. We live in Oregon and we don't make apologies for that. Yeah. And it is great because we can tap into so much stuff. But there's so much going on all over the country, which is why it's nice to have a national person here, you could tell us about and you live in Arkansas.

00:04:48 Sunny Baker

Yeah. That’s correct.

00:04:50 Michelle

Oh my gosh. So what is happening on the national scene? What do we need to know about and at the time of this recording, it is June 2025.

00:04:50 Sunny Baker

I do. I live in Little Rock.

00:04:52 Sunny Baker

Yeah, we are both simultaneously getting to celebrate some big wins in the farm to school movement, so, we did see universal school meals nationally in the pandemic that did happen we saw…

00:05:18 Michelle

What does that mean? What does that mean universal free meals?

00:05:22 Sunny Baker

Every child with the opportunity to eat for free in school every day, or actually it was like delivered to you in the bus stop when we had to be sheltered down. So we saw how that worked. And then a number of states picked up the tab when the federal government stopped doing that and started doing universal school meals within their States and some of them aligned. Those universal school meals with some of their values around local purchasing and really supporting schools to provide the best food to kids. So that's one huge thing that's been happening. The USDA also in the in the Biden era really threw a lot of money at the problem. They invested in these regional food business centers. They created this farm to school Formula Grant for every state in the country. They issued these local food for schools, local food for early childcare, LFP, a funds, local food, purchasing assistance. We really saw what was one of the biggest problems, which was financial resource be just really supported by our tax dollars at the federal government. So the moment we're in now is that we saw that. We navigated some of the challenges with getting what I called a fire hose of money all at one time, and we figured out a lot of the kinks, and now we've entered an era where some of these things are being rolled back. And it's a little scary cause it's hard when you've had such a beautiful thing and it gets taken.  But we are, you know, uncovering a lot in this moment too and figuring out a path for it. I'm really hoping that we get something that looks like local food for schools passed in legislation so that it's not temporary, that it's a permanent funding source for states. 

00:07:24 Rick

We're really fortunate in Oregon is we have our own state grant program, but other states do not.

00:07:30 Michelle

Well, and even with our state funded programs in Oregon and lots of other states, the local food for schools really helped start to fill a huge gap in our state is like $0.04 per meal. It's like really not that much in the grand scheme of things. And it's interesting to hear you say that from a national level because on a state level, you know, institutionalizing anything takes time, like democracy is inherently frustrating and slow. That means it's working, in my opinion. And so, you know, getting a firehose of funding on a state level, we had to figure out a lot of things of, like, well, how do we work together? And there's just like a lot of nuts and bolts related to paperwork and logistics that you know go unseen, you know. And so yes, we got many of those things in place with the Department of Education and Agriculture and working with Organ Farm, School network. And then you're right. And then the program evaporates and you're like, OK, we just figured all that out and now what?

00:08:30 Sunny Baker

I know. Have I told you about my whole section of Gray hair that I call my USDA farm to school Grant section.

00:08:37 Rick

Hmm.

00:08:38 Sunny Baker

It's like a little stripe right here. Those grants, while so bountiful and the, you know, the minimum was 5 million every year. But every year Congress was giving more and more up to like fifteen, $20 million in farm to school grants. So bountiful it's how it, you know, launched my whole career in front of school, those grants are so hard to access. They're so hard.. 

00:09:04 Rick

..And they're competitive.

00:09:06 Sunny Baker

They’re very Competitive. There's you have to know your DUNS number and get into a program called FPRS and you know if you're talking about these little communities that really need that bump of financial support. That's the place where I'd love to see some efficiency happen and some means.

00:09:22 Rick

It's so helpful to have a grant writer for some of the big school districts that know all that stuff and can navigate that minefield.  But the smaller, smaller districts? Yeah, it's very tough. It can be.

00:09:32 Michelle

Let me ask you, this is a little bit radical approach. So a lot of times grants exist to, you know, test a concept, right. And nonprofits exist to do that. So like something that the state networks and national networks been really able to do is like proof of concept. We don't have to say farm to school is a good idea anymore. It is now. It's just like how we get there and one of the reasons. You know, back when I was an equal trust back in the day pitched going into early childcare and really focusing more on the foodservice directors is because the changes you make in their say. There's more sustainable because people stay in those jobs a long time, so that was a very long prelude to say well we've had more than a grant more than a decade of the grants and funding, have we primed the pump enough in farm to school or in somewhat that like some changes are sustainable like even or if we lost the State Farm, new school money, would some of these things still happen? Like do we have to keep going back and asking for more money?

00:10:36 Sunny Baker

Yeah. Well, you and I had a great conversation about this not that long ago, because in reality, these schools have no money to spend on practically no money to spend on food, let alone the incredibly valuable labor force. I mean, school food, cafeteria staff. I call them lunch ladies. Some people do not like that term, but I identify as one so…

00:11:03 Michelle

My future husband would disagree.

00:11:07 Sunny Baker

You know, they are sometimes making less than janitors in a school district, and janitors should be getting thriving wages in schools. These are often the one person that is smiling at a kid in a day. They know the kids so well. They're feeding our children, nourishing our children and keeping them alive, and they're making poverty level

00:11:27 Rick

They're not in it for the money. No, they're there because they're making a difference. 

00:11:29 Sunny Baker

Yeah. They're not in it for the money, but in reality, we can do grants and grants and grants. What we need is higher reimbursement. We need these to be meals that align with our values and I heard this week someone say like poverty and hunger is a policy choice. I love that framing because I think the type of school food that's pretty typical and bare minimum is a policy choice. I mean, they're excellent foodservice folks in this. I mean, we are surrounded by the best of the best here in Oregon this week. It's really hard to do that. It's really hard to go outside the norm of your standard produce contracts and make those relationships that are needed to get local food on trays.

00:12:23 Rick

So as a director of policy, it's your job to fix all that then?

00:12:27 Sunny Baker

Yeah, I will be fixing all of that!

00:12:29 Michelle

Thank you.

00:12:32 Sunny Baker

Let's see. Karen Spengler, who is absolutely brilliant.  And she has a team who are brilliant and they are watching the Senate hearings. Yeah. And they are paying so close attention to what's happening. And that is one of our roles in this movement is to say here are the people that we elected who work for us in the halls of Congress. And here's what they're talking about.

00:12:46 Michelle

Riveting.

00:13:00 Sunny Baker

And they need to hear from you.

00:13:02 Rick

So Sunny , we just heard you give your keynote address here at the for the group, and I was so inspiring. You were saying this stuff, that the National Farm to School Network has been working on that that we just got a kind of a little pre glimpse of. And I was just it was really encouraging. Feel good stuff. So could you kind of tell some of the stuff you're working on now?

00:13:25 Sunny Baker

Yeah, I'd love to. You know something? And you asked earlier about the evolution of the network and the movement of farm to school too. And I know you heard this from Anupama and Miguel as well. But there's been a real racial reckoning in our food systems and in our farm to school and EC, the early childcare movement as well, and I feel like we've come to this really incredible place at this moment. This growth stage because you are never complete and we are on a journey.

00:13:58 Rick

On a journey? Yeah. Never done with that stuff, but no.

00:14:00 Sunny Baker

Never done where we are really bringing in more leaders. More grassroots folks to this movement and making sure that communities that are classically underserved and don't have platforms are having access to those places and those movements. So we've had a really incredible program called the Racial Equity Learning Lab, which is a community where people are learning and growing together and developing resources and gathering resources. And then we are really diving into excellence in farm to school across the country and finding these leaders and these ideas and these steps that we want to make sure get the research and attention that they deserve so that we can see some replication across the state. So one of the programs that I just love and I'm so proud of is this farm to school coordinators community of practice. That's my origins in the movement was as a farm to school coordinator. It's a really lonely job. Because you're working across a bunch of different departments, grounds and curriculum and cow nutrition. So we created this place where they get to get together and talk about funding sources and talking to school boards and then learn together through this incredible leadership institute that we have Co facilitated with Shelburne Farms and Vermont feed, and you know those are those are the OG's in farm to school or just like y'all here they're on the East Coast. But to get to sink into this both young people coming up in this movement and new people and then folks that have been doing it for so long, who have all these best practices, it has been this beautiful, cross generational situation where we are learning and replicating and sparking new ideas together. And I'm really excited for the future of farm to school coordinators in districts.

00:16:13 Rick

Yeah. And I mean the issue with that, it seems like the farm to school coordinator historically used to be unpaid volunteer and we're I know in Oregon we're seeing more and more people that are getting some of their time paid for either through the classroom or whatever. But to get that institutionalized. And you were even teasing that you'll have a sheet coming out that says like, hey, there's a, you know, tips on how to get that a paid position that's like one of the biggest things.

00:16:36 Sunny Baker

Ohh yeah. Yeah, we've got those resources now. We did research with Colorado State University and we've got this slate of research. We've got a slide you can put into your school board meeting to convince people to do this and yeah, And I hope to see everyone collectively at the farm to cafeteria conference, which is coming back.

00:16:59 Rick

Ohh yeah, and when is that? When is the next one?

00:17:02 Sunny Baker

The first week of December in Albuquerque, NM, we had it planned for 2025.

00:17:04 Rick

In.

00:17:05 Rick

New.

00:17:06 Michelle

2025.

we had it planned for 2020.

00:17:10 Rick

2020.

00:17:11 Sunny Baker

April 2020 some crazy stuff happens.

00:17:12 Rick

So five years in the making, boy, it's going to be so good cause you've had five years to plan.

00:17:17 Sunny Baker

We've had five years to plan. We're so excited. We hope to see as many people as we can get there possible.

00:17:23 Rick

And I was at the.. my first one was 2009 in Detroit, and I think there's like what, 1000 people there? There's a lot of people there and all school garden coordinators, teachers, practitioners, it's a very I highly recommend it.

00:17:33 Sunny Baker

Yeah, 1000 people.

00:17:40 Michelle

Well, Sunny, thank you for making time to hang with us. Really appreciate you and all the work that you do and really applaud you and are cheering you on. We're rooting for you.

00:17:49 Sunny Baker

Thank you. It's been such an honor. This is the podcast I love. This is my road trip jam.

00:17:54 Rick

Ohh thank you. Ohh, good. You're our listener. We found our listener.

00:18:00 Michelle

We found one. Well, you are listening. We found you too. And you found us. And we're really appreciative of you being here today.

00:18:08 Rick

Farm to school was written, directed and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Markesteyn, with production support from LeAnn Locher of Oregon State University. This podcast was made possible by a grant by the United States Department of Agriculture.

00:18:20 Michelle

The content and ideas of the farm to school podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University or the United States Department of Agriculture. USDA and Oregon State University are equal opportunity providers and employers.

00:18:33 Rick

Do you want to learn more about farm to school? I do. So. Yeah, who doesn’t? Me too. Check out our websites, find episodes, show notes, contact information and much more by searching farm to school. Podcast, OSU.

00:18:38 Michelle

Want to learn more about it? Check out our website. Yeah, we'll even have a link to the amazing conference in December. That sunny mentioned. Yep, come on. Come say hi to us. We really appreciate you listening and love to get in touch. Thanks again, Sunny .

00:18:58 Rick

Thank you, Sunny  so much.

00:19:00 Sunny Baker

Thanks y'all, this is wonderful.