Mature grapefruit and avocado trees line one side of Magnolia elementary school in sunny Upland, California, a small city about half an hour east of Los Angeles. About 120 students participate in the school’s garden club where, in addition to learning about gardening and farming, they enjoy the literal fruits of their labor when their food is harvested and served in Upland unified school district cafeterias.
“It helps them understand the produce they’re seeing in the salad bar,” says Upland unified’s farm-to-school manager, Cassidy Furnari.
Thanks to an increased interest in local foods, farm-to-school programs and school gardens in recent years, some school meals are looking a lot different from the frozen and processed foods that have been associated with school cafeterias for generations.
Advocates say serving fresh and local foods increases students’ access to and consumption of nutritious foods and improves school meal quality and participation rates – benefits that are more important than ever as American children face a hunger crisis due to the expiration of pandemic-era programs.
According to the USDA’s 2019 farm-to-school census, about 43 million children participate in farm-to-school programs every year, and nearly 68,000 schools feature local foods on their menu. Districts like Upland are setting new standards for school meals, sourcing from local growers and bakeries, taking field trips to farms, and hosting monthly taste tests of produce such as candy cane beets and rainbow carrots so students can expand their palates.
“The pandemic played a role,” says Upland unified’s nutrition services director, Ksenia Glenn, of the district’s shift to local foods. “We wanted to diversify our supply chain, but I think more than that we wanted to support local farmers and get the freshest, most delicious food grown here in the Inland Empire.”
California is leading efforts to build a healthy, equitable and more resilient food system through its universal free school meals program. In October, the USDA announced it had signed a cooperative agreement with the state of California for more than $23m to increase the purchase of local foods, which the agency defines as food that’s produced in state or less than 400 miles (640km) away.
And in November, the California department of food and agriculture announced $25.5m in funding for 120 farm-to-school projects across the state as part of the California farm-to-school incubator grant program. Upland unified is a grantee, receiving $69,500 from the program to build additional school gardens; grow culturally relevant fruits, vegetables and herbs in the gardens; and hire educators.
The benefits of school cafeterias going local are numerous. Food travels fewer miles and requires less time in storage. Farm-to-school programs often work with regenerative producers who use climate-smart agricultural practices. Buying locally improves racial justice by promoting marginalized farmers and ranchers – who tend to own small and mid-size farms – and increases food security via healthier school meals. By procuring local products, schools are also increasing economic resilience in their own communities.
“What really helps farming families are anchor partners who order week after week in pallet-size quantities,” says Anna Knight, a fifth-generation farmer at Old Grove Orange who supplies the Upland school district with produce such as pre-sliced cantaloupe, valencia oranges and organic watermelon radish – all picked within 24 hours of delivery. “Not only do we get to survive as farmers, but we get to have kids having a gastronomic experience.”
Old Grove Orange hosts mini farmers’ markets on Upland unified campuses and welcomes students to its farm so they know what their farmer looks like and where their food comes from. Upland schools also receive produce from the Riverside Food Hub, which represents 19 farmers, including 16 Bipoc farmers.
In San Bernardino county, where Upland is located, more than 18%, or 104,370 children, are food insecure, with a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life. A Columbia University evaluation found that schools that offered hands-on activities such as gardening and cooking had students who ate three times as many fruits and vegetables compared with students without those opportunities.
“Farm-fresh, local foods can improve school meal quality, meal participation rates, climate impact and local economic development,” says Nick Anicich, farm-to-school program manager for the state of California. “By shortening supply chains, farm-to-school programs can also create more resilient local food systems that are less impacted by supply chain challenges.”
During the pandemic, the Long Beach unified school district said its farm-to-school vendors were the only ones with a 100% delivery rate during the supply chain disruption. The Vacaville unified school district had the same experience. “The only people we could depend on during Covid were the local vendors,” said Vacaville’s director of student nutrition, Juan Cordon.
Vacaville unified is focused on serving made-from-scratch local and organic food for its 18 schools, and even brought in a chef to teach kitchen staff how to prepare new dishes. “We buy just like if we’re going to the farmers’ market – we see what’s local and fresh and what tastes good,” said Cordon. “We’re seeing students excited about fruits and vegetables.”
By sourcing from Spork Food Hub, which works with 30 Sacramento area farmers and ranchers and is also an incubator program grantee, Vacaville unified receives produce such as blackberries, raspberries, broccolini, peaches and squash – all harvested within 72 hours of delivery. “It’s fresher, there’s less of a carbon footprint and you’re contributing to the local economy,” said Cordon.
Vacaville unified is now building a central kitchen without freezers to meet its goal of having no frozen proteins. Current menu offerings include steel-cut oatmeal with fruit, a farmers’ market scramble, an organic chicken wrap with house-made ranch in a whole grain tortilla, and black bean tamales with corn masa made by a local vendor.
“Over the last decade we’ve seen how our food systems are hijacked by massive corporations and we see it in the school system, too,” said Alice Reznickova, an interdisciplinary scientist with the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Relocalizing where schools get their food means the school meals will be more nutritious and there are other co-benefits.”
Reznickova said that while local and regional chains are important, there are differences in what kind of produce is available throughout the year – and the climate crisis is increasing the intensity of floods, droughts and hurricanes, all of which affect local food systems. She said that accessing a wide variety of local foods in California may be easy, but that isn’t the case everywhere.
“Any program has to be flexible because the US is such a large country and we have such a variety of climates and products,” she said. “Any federal policy or local guidelines have to account for this flexibility.” While Upland students may have more access to local foods than districts in other climate zones, it’s clear that the local movement within their district goes beyond having tastier or fresher options.
“Students understand how much goes into growing produce and they have a greater understanding and respect for how hard it is to be a farmer,” said Upland’s farm-to-school manager Furnari. “Our goal is that students are understanding more of the food system – it’s a continuation of the classroom.”
