Rambling on and on and on about farming, food and astronomy. Astronomy? Yep. Farming and astronomy go together like garlic and basil, tomatoes and peppers, ice cream and bacon.

8th February 2012

Post with 6 notes

Wisconsin Farm to School Program

My wife recently attended a conference on the Wisconsin Farm to School foods program. Wisconsin is actively supporting small, local farmers by encouraging school food service departments to purchase produce, meat and other food products from local farmers.

Schools are not only being encouraged to buy food locally whenever possible, but to actually get their students engaged with farming, bringing in local farmers to meet students, taking students to local farms, and creating posters, table tents and other materials to promote the farms which grew the food the students are eating.

My initial reaction to all of this was the usual “yeah, sure, just another fake program politicians put together to make it look like they’re really doing something.” But after going through the materials Donna picked up at the conference, and talking to a local food service director, they seem to be really serious about this effort.

You can pick up the “Wisconsin Farm to School Toolkit for Producers” which includes just about all of the information you need about the program. It discusses how schools purchase food, what farmers need to do to get involved in the program, safety standards they need to meet, licensing requirements, even how to deal with students visiting the farm. Licensing requirements are minimal, and about what you’d expect. No licensing is required at all for selling raw, unprocessed produce. If processing is involved, the usually licensing and inspection requirements are in place as they would be for normal commercial sale of products.

The biggest “gotcha” is, of course, the government red tape involved in selling to a public institution. In order to get reimbursed from USDA, comply with state and federal purchasing rules, school districts have to go through a bidding process for just about everything they buy, including food. Something like this can be difficult for a small producer to deal with, but there are exceptions for “small” purchases.

In this case, “small” can be pretty darn big by small farmer standards. Don’t let the bidding requirements prevent you from at least trying to get into this potential market.

If you’re interested in this, Wisconsin has several web sites you can get more info from:

Wisconsin Farm to School:  www.wifarmtoschool.org

UW Agriculture: www.cias.wisc.edu/category/faarm-to-fork/farm-to-school/

Wis Ag Dept: http://datep.wi.gov/Business/Buy_Local_Buy_wisconsin/Farm_to_School_Program/index.aspx

USDA Farm to school: www.fns.usda/gov/cnd/f2s

This seems for real. I talked to a school food service director I know and she’s more than eager to find local produce for the school.

So here is not only a potential market for your produce, but also an opportunity to connect to your local community, educate people about food production, and get the word out about your farm.

Tagged: agriculturefarmingfoodschoolnutrition

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  1. krippner posted this