Planting the Next Decade: One State's 10-Year Vision for Farm to School

Today we’re taking you behind the scenes of something that doesn’t always sound exciting, but shapes everything we do—strategic planning. Stick with us, because this isn’t your typical dry ‘vision statement’ talk. This is the story of how one state brought together farmers, schools, nonprofits, and agencies to chart a bold 10-year vision for Farm to School. We’ll share how hundreds of voices shaped the process, why it matters far beyond Oregon, and how a plan on paper can actually spark a movement. 

Transcript

Planting the Next Decade: One State’s 10-Year Vision for Farm to School Transcript

Today we’re taking you behind the scenes of something that doesn’t always sound exciting, but shapes everything we do—strategic planning. Stick with us, because this isn’t your typical dry ‘vision statement’ talk. This is the story of how one state brought together farmers, schools, nonprofits, and agencies to chart a bold 10-year vision for Farm to School. We’ll share how hundreds of voices shaped the process, why it matters far beyond Oregon, and how a plan on paper can actually spark a movement.

00:00:07 Rick

Welcome everybody to the Farm to School Podcast where you will hear stories of how youth thrive and famous prosper. When we learn to grow, cook and eat delicious, nutritious foods, we shouldn't think we can handle that.

00:00:20 Michelle

I'm excited because today we have the most boring…   I'm a I'm a self-proclaimed data dork. So the idea of connecting public process through the driven public process in the form of a strategic planning.  No, I love it. I love it.

00:00:38 Rick

So… You don't. Don't listen to what she said. No, But here's the thing, we were just reminiscing where we were in our state and we've been there for a bit. I came on board in 2012 and Michelle was around a little bit longer. She actually created the legislative Bill that created my job. So thank you. Thank you, Michelle, for that. So I'm totally indebted for that. But that was back in the days where farming school was just starting to become a thing. So tell us how, how did that and you said you were able moving with a couple of people with no predecessor.

00:01:16 Michelle

You're welcome. Oh well, what he's talking is about strategic planning. Because really this episode where we wanted to head was at the time I was recording it is 2025. And we are launching a new 10 year vision for the state of Oregon. And like, what's that? And like? Ohh God, one more road map for one more vision evaluation. Well, yeah. There's different ways we started it, but it's pretty freaking awesome because yes, people have the title farm school or school garden coordinator. They have the position description. But 15 years ago that was not the case. And largely, a lot of this work is adjacent to what people already do, right? That's why we have the farm school touch points. There are producers, there are processors, there's educators, school boards, there's a lot of people who touch this work, but it isn't necessarily their work. The most complex relationships between public giving private people. So what do I mean, you have all these different nonprofits that work on local, regional, state or national levels, and then you have businesses, commodity commissions, tribes, military.

00:02:57 Rick

Commodity commissions? You know that is out there like people that sell a certain product like blueberries or you know, right?

00:03:05 Michelle

You know, potato? potatoes. Yeah, yeah. Usually it's a it's a quasi-governmental.. get all the big words today. But what I mean is there's usually they don't say a tax, it's a fee that is assessed per pound or something and then that money goes into the Commission to be used for like whatever the mission of the Commission. So that is, uh, usually research and marketing. Yeah, those kind of main things. So you have all these people, all these different groups, together who all have different missions, mission directives? They have different timelines, they have different budgets, and they all report something different to somebody.

00:03:43 Rick

Yes. I look at it like this, that's a really good point because in the position that I worked at with the state government with Department of Education, we looked, I work with teachers, food service directors to get local food in the cafeteria of farmers that way. And then I have a counterpart, Amy, with the Department of AG, and she works for farmers, ranchers, producers giving that food and the cafeteria. So we'll both find the school coordinators, but we tackle it from different side. And so totally different levels like I'm more education and school garden focused, whereas somebody else might be more producer focused and Oregon's economy focused, if that makes sense. Right. 

00:04:38 Michelle

Well, right. And you have to report key performance indicators to the state legislature every two years. And that is what that's who is or the USDA, depending on what program you're running and that's who decides like, if you're doing a good job or if you get more money..

00:04:53 Rick

So, Michelle, right? So this is great for us and we're too. We're more about Oregon and we've gone through. We've just finished another marathon session for what, 2 years of this? For the 10 year strategic plan process? Why should you care about this? Do you? Well, why? Why should someone in another state care about this? Do they have strategic plans? Do they have things like this going on in other states Michelle?

00:05:21 Michelle

Yes, absolutely. A famous one that recently came out is a California road map. And let's put in our show notes the ones we can find.

00:05:30 Rick

How many? Well, there's only 50 states, so I can start Googling I guess.

00:05:32 Michelle

I don't know.

The fifty strategic plans.

00:05:37 Rick

I mean we know we know some because we've had our brain picked and we've picked other people's minds for this stuff.

00:05:42 Michelle

And we were them in preparation, but I guess the main thing is like why does it matter? Why would it matter? It's like, how much do you want to work together? You know, we just talked about how agencies have different mission directives, but so do nonprofit organizations. They have goals. Mission, Vision, core values. So I just mentioned, like, all the agencies have different mission directives but not profits, different directives, yes. OK. And so they have a vision, mission values. They're funded to do specific programmatic work. So what is never talked about but layered in is the mission and values of the philanthropic agencies that fund nonprofits that do a bulk of the work.

00:06:34 Rick

And let me just say I had no idea when I landed in my job very well with nonprofits like in our world, from the school nonprofits, is everything they do. A lot of the heavy lifting, and they're in every corner of the state. They have different organizations. We have a statewide organization, but we also have regional ones that partner with our nationwide, our statewide farm to school network, but it is it's very common in our world to work so closely with nonprofits for the for the work that we do, I mean, and they are able. I'm not able to advocate or anything. And because I'm a state employee, they can call the action they can, they can do what they want, which they can talk to legislators, presumably and stuff like that. So very, very cool.

00:07:33 Michelle

Yeah. And in the in the way the legislatures and advocacy groups in Oregon have framed from the school gardens, like the whole systems approach have been so inclusive of, like all products.

00:07:46 Rick

What do you mean?

00:07:47 Michelle

It's fresh. Frozen, dried, canned. It's scale and production neutral. It's, you know, it's just a big tent approach, to all of agriculture and you know, as a result, we've had non separately word. Unanimous. I love that word. Nonpartisan legislative support, which again at the time this recording is now over $40 million.

00:08:16 Rick

Isn't that crazy? 

00:08:17 Michelle

In Oregon, that's big money. You're in California? I don't think so, but there are less people in the entire state of Oregon than in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Just to give you an idea.

00:08:29 Rick

And Michelle should know that she intimately aware of Dallas Fort Worth area. I'm just leaving it right there. 

00:08:39 Michelle

So shout out to backers grants, and then, as Rick mentioned, the grant program, they really bolstered by the Oregon formal school network. And you know, Oregon State University and lots of businesses and things.

00:08:55 Rick

You know. In this 40 million that Michelle speaks of, that was like my first day on the job and I had a $200,000 grant to manage and there was, I mean, at the time it was like they asked for 50 million and we got $200,000.

00:09:11 Michelle

We asked for 22 million. OK, this is something that's never been recorded. They actually gave 7 million but 11:00 at night I got a legislative phone call and the coalition at the time had had made the determination that it needed to be for all Oregon kids and all Oregon schools, and they would not settle for less than 11,000,000 and the legislature said OK, fine. Don't give me anything.

00:09:37 Rick

Well, $200,000.

00:09:39 Michelle

That legislation, I don't think we got anything.

00:09:41 Rick

Oh.

00:09:42 Michelle

Hard lesson learned.

00:09:44 Rick

I didn't know this, 

00:09:47 Michelle

But we've always been too embarrassed to admit it. But then think about it though.

00:09:51 Rick

Just that $200,000 and that's been always my Council to other states that have picked my brain every I've gotten calls from, I think all 50 states over the years. I really have like always got a former school grant now to do it, and that was really key to get our foot in the door and show great results from that little line. Schools that applied back then went for the 200,000 and then the next legislative session 1.2 million. And then yeah, then, you know 1.2, you know that they came up to him worked pretty rapidly. Well 15 and then got cut down to 10. But I digress. But anyway, we've been pretty stable ever since, and we've shown more people know how cool this is, how cool, how good it is for farmers, how good it is for kids, teachers, nobody loses. Everybody wins. So. So, yeah, it makes it so, like over 40 million overall, but it's like that was a big struggle. And I mean of lifetime of work in 10 years anyway, if you could figure that. Yeah, here we are.

00:11:01 Michelle

And part of part of why we are talking today about like our new 10 year vision is because you know enough of us agreed that it is our responsibility and then we all play a role in like ensuring these public funds are well spent and durable and that you know the private funds to the you know greatest extent possible. We cannot direct them, but we can inspire nonprofits and we can inspire other funders of this work so, you know, Rick mentioned years of planning, but seriously, in 202 three. So we are up to two years now. The organ from the school network departments of AG and Ed, the Dairy, Oregon, Dairy Council, Ecotrust Food Court and our dear friends at Raindrop Workshop as well as OSU extension. We joined together like planning partners. We should have had T-shirts. We didn't have T-shirts, planning partners, but we were like, OK, what could we envision for the next 10 years?

00:12:06 Rick

We're not only there because just to back up the… Yep, we had goals from like 10 years ago, but they're still out of date. I mean, if you look at like the when we were just starting out and I use that analogy as your manager, you know, it's leaning up against it, going along and get all the way to the top. And I should have been on this other wall, right? It's like so.. 

00:12:31 Michelle

I don't know that.

00:12:40 Rick

Never heard of that? I probably just made it up. (Editors note: it’s from Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”)  So the point is.. Forget everybody, forget about going walls and ladders, but it's good to reevaluate because some of the stuff is like we didn't even think of this before. We didn't even think about just a whole myriad of things. And so we got together and we said, but we also we wanted some fresh blood and somebody that didn't know anything. And we went from the school to lead us. So anyway. 

00:13:05 Michelle

OK, wait. I'm actually just reading through our report. I'm on page. Yeah, I mean, so representatives from each of these organizations got together and we had Jane Waite from Oregon State University kick us off. And some of our facilitation processes and we like just started with a vision and this was we agreed on this vision that over the next 10 years, primary school will equitably improve child health and well-being support academic achievement will promote environmental resilience and victory Oregon agricultural economy. And that's big because as Rick said, you know those are different mission areas, but we all have to work together to achieve. And so, you know, in this the rest of this podcast, we really want to talk about the process. And so in this podcast, we want to talk about, like, how did we go about doing a strategic vision?

00:14:08 Rick

So Michelle, so we all got together. I remember all that piece. So you really love talking about strategic plans and all this process, right?

00:14:19 Michelle

Smiling, I wish you could see us. In theory I do. But my experience is because I'm not necessarily thinks in the moment especially of the things I've been in so many strategic planning processes and I'm thinking this thing resonate with some people where whoever… It's like the right words and is able to articulate themselves, gets heard the most, and that's what the facilitator writes on the wall. And then you get this report and the facilitator who isn't involved in the work, then leaves and usually strategic plans are like check we did it rarely are they ever used. We are one the ideal scenarios to have input lots of people giving input into it to shape the direction, but we haven't had a mechanism to even do. That either

00:15:09 Rick

But I see positives and negatives on this. Because I remember the reason we got a facilitator in there. That we wanted somebody that wasn't.. They really didn't know about from the school. We had to teach them about that and that is because no, he didn't. It was it's not. It's this isn't a slight on anybody. It's just somebody that wasn't in that work. Our circle of influence because they already know that stuff. And like we didn't want Michelle to lead it because just what you're saying stops your preconceived things and you'd be driving this, but to get somebody that, yeah, it took a lot of time to like. Oh, no, no. This is what from school is. This is what we mean. And there's a trade off there. That's not always a positive free flowing thing, but we could skip a lot and miss a lot. If somebody like you were to lead it and or somebody else that that knows everything about us. It's just like it's not time well spent, right?

00:16:11 Michelle

Totally. And so we had a couple different phases of this planning process and more detailing them here for you because you can follow them too.

00:16:19 Rick

We're lucky, lucky.

00:16:21 Michelle

But really, our community easement process, so with an amazing facilitator we really worked on creating a shared understanding of our current state of implementation. So we talked about our challenges, our opportunities and our gap in statewide procurement and at agricultural Ed. And then we looked at our previous goals like up until 22012 to 2:02 three, and we looked at existing data collection and reporting systems and then we did we really like mapped out what our different organizational missions are. Our rules actually position descriptions. Our statewide partners and then funding sources of each, so that wasn't a totally facilitative process, which was amazing, because then what we were able to do was to come up with these draft goals. And then we created like potential strategies to achieve them.

00:17:20 Rick

And so the next step is when the magic really happened, I thought because we just there was a group of this like 10 of this that have been talking about this, but then we… All this stuff and we needed to share it out. What do we do then?

00:17:31 Michelle

Well, we use this digital tool called considerate, which is amazing. It's an online platform for dialogue to like… This isn't a commercial for them. They're not a sponsor. We don't have any sponsors. If you want sponsors, contact us. So far, no. But so. But yeah, this is an embarrassment. I just wanted to say that, but.

00:17:54 Rick

It's OK, it just it is what it is commercial it is what it is. That's alright.

00:17:55 Michelle

I do, I do. A lot of commercials. Just that, but like, yeah, how often can you see an online transparent dialogue. So we'll have a link in the show notes of what we're even talking about. But get this 849 people actually opened the plan and read at least part of it, which is amazing. How often do people actually read draft strategic plans?

00:18:19 Rick

It's more than reading. What did they do then? They were able to…?

00:18:22 Michelle

Well, I'm looking at numbers. I did not memorize this. They actually provided feedback including 280 plus comments and almost 1500 opinion.  And that's what took us a lot of time. Yeah, we literally went through every opinion and comment and as a planning team discussed it.

00:18:45 Rick

And that's a good point because you don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water or anything here. But like when everyone really loved this one thing, but one person said no... No, no. But I'm over generalizing. But you kind of have to think. Well, Gee, what about the other 800 people who thought it was, like, super valuable and everything. And so you had to kind of take it in. But I found myself arguing with myself a lot about this person had a very valid point. But the other 800 people have too, you know. Anyway, so it was a good way to look at the big picture I think.

00:19:29 Michelle

Yeah, it was informative, instructive. We all read them with open minds and in in teams of people, so it wasn't ever one person just looking at it.

00:19:41 Rick

And then what? And then OK, we have all that. It's this “ConsiderIt” program. And then I can kind of wanted to talk about at some point by the time this airs, In October or whatever. Then we can have it. It'll be ready and we could say, oh, I wish we had a place to look at the finished product and it will be ready. It's not now, today but.

00:20:02 Michelle

Do we want to go through the report or do we just want to talk about the process, like how long we've been talking just the process and then the next one, let's do the report.

00:20:09 Rick

It's been 20 minutes so far.

00:20:10 Michelle

Perfect. Let's do 2. OK. OK.

00:20:13 Rick

You know how I love 2 parters?

00:20:18 Michelle

Tune In next time!

00:20:21 Rick

So we yeah, so we did, we did, everybody commented.

00:20:26 Michelle

Lots of people commented and you know that didn't just happen. The planning partner, as I mentioned earlier, you know, we really thought through this like arc of engagement. And remember we like have this spreadsheet and we're trying to coordinate, we're like, OK.

00:20:42 Michelle

How do we reach people you know, personally with newsletters, listeners, webinars. We did conference sessions. We actually did train the trainer.

00:20:52 Michelle

And individual webinars. We just like really hit the pavement.

00:20:56 Rick

I remember like going around the rooms and well, I have our local school nutrition association and we have a newsletter that reaches 9000 people and then AD where I have a reason that goes out, the farmers, ranchers, producers and once you have something in the network has 1900 members around the state, and they have legislature outreach, so we just went around and looked at every possible group that we could share it with.

00:21:24 Michelle

Along all the farmer school touch points. So this kind of underscores something we didn't say even from the beginning, but it was vital and really energizing throughout this whole process was seeing strategic planning as a movement building strategy to, you know, reinvigorate, reengage, engage new folks like new when pharma school in the state is new. Like, just like a school garden. There's a three-year love bubble. People like, yeah, I mean. But we're on 20 years.

00:22:02 Rick

Yeah, And we've always had the internal discussion like have we done everything is the answer to that, but.

00:22:10 Michelle

I did ask that.

00:22:11 Rick

But we have we do so and this is a good process to think through that the whole scenario like are we doing what do we have left to do and what's our plan you know what have where do we want to be tomorrow in 10 years and so now we have all that we have all the data in. We have everything. We have our different categories, right where we have all the different that we can share those with you. We're talking about maybe doing the next time some of the doing a deeper dive. But for right now we're done, right?

00:22:40 Michelle

Yeah. We want to just update you all on the strategic planning process and we will include in our show notes more links to some of the online dialogue tools we used and also some additional steps that we did. We just really encourage you to create transparent processes of communication and dialogue, and that's democracy at its best.

00:23:06 Rick

OK, what else? Anything else you want to talk about on the show now? 

00:23:10 Michelle

We'll tell you about our…I know you're all dying to hear the results of that, so part 2 next time.

00:23:18 Rick

Hey everybody, thanks for listening today. We really appreciate it. Farm to School was writte, directed and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Marketeyn with production support from Amazing Leanne Lochner and Oregon State University, and this podcast was made possible in part by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

00:23:38 Rick

The content ideas from the school podcast does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University and the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA and Oregon State University are equal opportunity providers and employers. Hey, do you know more about farming school? Yes, you do. Who doesn't? Hey, check out our other episodes, show notes and you can contact us. We actually have a phone button that says connect with us.

00:24:02 Michelle

hit that button. Go to farm to school podcast, Oregon State University.

00:24:09 Rick

Yep, Yep. We'd love to hear from you. Stop by the website Michelle just mentioned to say hello or give us an idea for future podcasts. There's an idea. Do you want more strategic planning? We can do that. OK. Bye, friends.

00:24:16 Michelle

That is an idea.