Farm to School Mobile Tour gives taste of North Olympic Peninsula’s bounty

Farm to School Mobile Tour gives taste of North Olympic Peninsula’s bounty
Peninsula Daily News, Oct 23, 2011

A daylong event for food service directors and farmers on the North Olympic Peninsula, it featured hands-on training in the kitchen, field trips to local growers and, of course, lunch featuring local ingredients.

Food Safety News: Bridging the GAP: Bringing Big Food Safety Regulations to Small Farms

Bridging the GAP: Bringing Big Food Safety Regulations to Small Farms

Food Safety News, Oct 24, 2011

For large farming operations, food safety audits are commonplace. Most buyers require them before purchasing produce. However, small farms are rarely inspected by auditors, because the cost of implementing a safety plan can be too expensive.

That's where Bridging the GAPs - a program designed to help small and mid-sized growers find a way to meet food safety guidelines - comes in.

Organized by the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA), the initiative will allow modest-sized operations to reach broader markets such as schools, grocery stores and restaurants, most of which now require Good Agricultural Practices certification.

Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) is a set of protocols approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that farmers can follow to prove they're growing and harvesting in a way that minimizes the risk of crop contamination.

However, because these standards require extra time, equipment and sometimes land, they are often daunting or even prohibitive to small and mid-sized farmers.

At a farm in Bellingham, WA this month, farmers, state and local health officials and community members gathered to begin a dialogue on how to make GAPs easier for modest farms to swallow. The group toured Cedarville Farms, a family-operated, 7-acre organic farm, in order to get a first-hand look at the obstacles that stand between small farms and GAPs certification.

School Food Focus highlights the Farm-to-School efforts of Seattle Public Schools

With the help of strong partnerships, Wendy Weyer serves up fresh, new foods in Seattle Public Schools

“You never serve anything fresh, or anything from Washington!”

That’s the criticism Wendy Weyer, Interim Director of Nutrition Services at Seattle Public Schools (SPS), has heard from parents and members of the community many times before. Fortunately, they’re wrong: “We realized we had to toot our own horn a bit” when it came to local and regional sourcing of fresh fruits and vegetables, she says. “Now we make it very clear that we are thoughtful about this. As long as it’s financially possible and we can get the volume we need, we do serve a lot of fresh, Washington-grown food in our schools.”

Read more here.

USDA Blog Post - Bringing More Fresh Fruits and Vegetables to Schools

Bringing More Fresh Fruits and Vegetables to Schools

In 1996, only two schools nationwide bought food directly from farmers in their region through what are called farm-to-school programs. Today, these programs exist in over 2,000 U.S. schools – and a new pilot program in Michigan and Florida could send that number ticking quickly upward.

Farm-to-school programs are a win-win-win for America’s farmers and ranchers, our students, and our schools. Last year, members of USDA’s Farm-to-School team visited fifteen schools across the country to check out their programs and were amazed by what they saw: “Kentucky Proud” signs posted next to locally-sourced food in the cafeterias of Montgomery County, KY public schools; twenty local products for lunch at schools in the Independence, IA Community School District; students at Harrisonburg, VA public schools who knew the name of the farmer supplying lettuce for their salad bar.

By partnering with farms in their area, these and other schools across the nation have been able to increase the quantity of fresh, healthy and locally-grown food available to students. They are also supporting the community by buying from farmers who work local land and employ local residents. Teachers love farm-to-school arrangements too: in schools that implement them, local products and visits to farms have been incorporated into science, math, and health classes.

Read the rest of the post here...

News video clip of Seattle Public Schools using local, fresh food in school meals

Q13 Fox News story 'Putting the breaks on childhood obesity' on Seattle Public Schools promoting locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables.

Watch the video here:

http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-putting-the-brakes-on-childhood-obesity-20110801,0,1232662.story

News about recent WSDA Farm-to-School Mobile Tour in Spokane Area

Schools, farms connecting to benefit student meals

Part of process is encouraging kids to try new foods
July 15, 2011 in DTE News
By Julie Schaffer, Down to Earth NW Correspondent

Late last month, local farmers, school nutrition staff, and Department of Corrections representatives spent a day touring local farms, sampling locally-produced food, and learning how to wash, peel, chop, dice, and serve fresh produce in school kitchens.

Leading the tour were Becky Elias and Sue Davis from “Farm to Schools,” a Washington State Department of Agriculture program that works to increase the amount of Washington-grown foods purchased by state agencies, institutions, and schools.

Also helping facilitate the tour was Jennifer Hall, the Eastern Washington coordinator for “Fresh Food in Schools,” a program with similar goals which is run through the nonprofit Washington Sustainable Food & Farming Network.

The Farm-to-School tours are one way that Elias and Davis are attempting to connect local farmers with potential buyers and to hopefully facilitate long-term direct purchasing relationships. If successful, the result will be more fresh foods available at school lunchrooms.

To read full article click here

USDA Finds New Ways To Boost Farm-to-School Programs

MINNEAPOLIS -- The popularity of farm-to-school programs that put locally grown food on cafeteria trays has exploded in recent years – so much so that the federal agency in charge of school lunches is giving them a new stamp of approval.

Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan said the programs have become so popular so fast that her agency doesn't have solid figures on how many schools are serving their students vegetables, fruits and meat grown by local farmers.

"We know it's just snowballing," Merrigan said in an interview with The Associated Press before her appearance Tuesday at the School Nutrition Association convention in Nashville, Tenn...

To read full article click here