Do you want more stories like this to land straight in your inbox? Subscribe to Food Tank’s newsletter, released weekly on Thursdays, by clicking here.
The National School Lunch Program serves over 4.5 billion meals to school-aged children in the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports. According to food systems advocates including Chef Alice Waters, this means that schools are uniquely positioned to drive the transformation of food and agriculture systems through better procurement practices.
Waters, who founded the Edible Schoolyard Project in the 1990s, argues that schools can use their purchasing power to buy nutritious, regeneratively-grown food directly from farmers. “When we support the people who grow the food for the schools, it’s the biggest gift that we can give the next generation,” she says.
Organizations such as the National Farm to School Network and the Center for Good Food Purchasing are working to bring that gift to children by connecting educational institutions and encourage school school districts to commit to better procurement strategies.
Farm to school activities are taking place in all 50 states. And since 2012, more than a dozen U.S. cities and jurisdictions have adopted the Good Food Purchasing Program, which focuses food procurement on five core values: local economies, health, valued workforce, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability
“There’s a huge opportunity to move the needle on healthier food and to teach life-long lessons on eating healthy,” says Claire Marcy, Senior Vice President of the Healthy Schools Campaign. And to do that, she says, the feeding program in schools everywhere has to align with values that support regenerative, nourishing, and equitable food and agriculture systems.
Read more about efforts taking place across the U.S. and around the world to expand school-supported agriculture in a new piece on Forbes by clicking HERE.
Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
