Farm To School: A Conversation with Marion Kalb
By Cooking Up a StoryUpdate: September 15, 2009: The USDA began their Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative at Tree and Leaf Farm, just outside Washington DC. In building the relationships between farmer and eater, emphasis will be placed in connecting locally grown food with learning institutions, so our children will have the opportunity to eat good fresh healthy food in their school lunch. Good for the farmer, good for the school, and good for the community as its local food economy grows healthier too.
Marion Kalb, director of the Farm to School program, part of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC), talks about the benefits to school kids, farmers, and rural communities when fresh, and local food is brought into the school lunch program for K-12 kids.
At first blush, it may seem too expensive for most budget-conscious school districts to adopt such a program? In addition, even though there may be clear health benefits of getting kids to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, along with important benefits to farmers and local communities, how many kids will actively participate, even if the opportunity is served to them on a silver platter (in this case, on a cafeteria lunchroom cart)?
But listen first to Marion Kalb, and you may find some of your doubts begin to fade. The Farm To School idea does work, and it may be coming to a neighborhood district where you live—with grassroots efforts, more success stories, and evangelists like Marion Kalb to inspire folks to try. As you will hear in the video, the benefits are potentially huge!
Tags: farm to school, farm to school lunch programs, farmers market, fresh foods, Growing & Raising Food, healthy eating, k-12 school lunch program, school nutrition
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3 Comments
Hi
I like your idea of program and this conversation help me a lot
rocky
Cooking
Taste matters to kids. Heck, like you point out, it matters to adults too. I too was encouraged when I learned that 150 kids lined up that first day to try the ‘new’ salad bar. The excitement is to learn it has leveled off to around 125/day. Sounds pretty successful to me. And less waste too, for if it is getting eaten it is not being thrown away by the students, nor is the food service person having to throw out (nearly as much) uneaten salad bar items.
some days I am so discouraged about school food I want to quit; Marion makes change seem utterly possible, and for that I’m thrilled. I love the story about the salad bar re-invention.
a few weeks ago my son brought his lunch home with him after a half-day. before lunch, they’d had a school-wide assembly with a long skit about how eating junk food keeps your brain from working properly; and how you should eat healthy food and vegetables so you’ll be smarter and more energetic. it was terrible irony that his lunch was an unappealing sandwich made of mystery meat (the kids never eat the sandwiches, I’ve observed in my visits during sandwich days), a bag of sugar-packed “fruit snacks,” and a paper cup of cucumber slices. my son started eating his fruit snacks and I picked up the cucumber slices; they were so slimy and putrid and utterly spoiled I wouldn’t feed them to my chickens. another day, I offered to eat the broccoli off one of Everett’s classmates lunch trays and I almost gagged at the taste; I can only imagine how many refrigerated trucks that had been in. they tasted very much like coolant.
if the kids had farmer’s market veggies, I think they might just have a chance at liking them. it’s something for us all to aspire to. I look forward to the rest of the interview!