Seeding Success 2022 Webinar 2: Track It! How to Make Your Farm to School Efforts Count
This webinar discusses the importance of tracking local food purchases. USDA fiscal year 2020 Farm to School State Agency Grant awardee Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, shared the Vermont approach to assessing tracking strategies and implementing new tools and systems for data collection.
Second webinar in the 2022 Seeding Success webinar series.
Developing Healthy, Delicious, and Exciting Meals for Students
The New York City Department of Education’s Office of Food and Nutrition Services (OFNS) exists to equitably serve New York City’s students with healthy and delicious meals that enhance their educational experience, reflect their voices, and nourish them into adulthood. They acknowledge that tasty food without nutrition is detrimental to students’ well-being while healthy meals without taste repel students’ curious taste buds and limit participation.
OFNS has always championed initiatives both in-house and nationally that facilitate the development of the best tasting and most nutritious menu items for students everywhere. The office was a lead advocate for the Chefs Move to Schools program, which partnered chefs with school communities to spread awareness about how whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods can be delicious and fun to cook. OFNS has also promoted the Farm to School Program, which connects schools with local farms and food producers to stimulate fresh food exchange that varies by the season, local economic development, and healthy eating for students.
Plant Powered Fridays, launched by Mayor Eric Adams, is the latest New York Citywide initiative giving more than one million students a new outlook on meals centering fruits and vegetables. Every Friday since February 2022, New York City school cafeterias have featured a delicious plant-based dish, rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and protein, as the primary menu item. The beloved staff make many of these meals from scratch with freshly prepared ingredients.
Students are empowered to guide the future of New York City school food. Close to 1,900 students annually taste and approve dishes like the Big City Bean Taco before they are served in New York City’s 1,800 public schools. The initiative also encourages young learners to make healthy food choices for a lifetime by exposing them to nutritious meals prepared in different, flavorful ways and providing them with the recipes to make these meals at home.
Building on this groundbreaking initiative, Mayor Adams and Department of Education Chancellor David C. Banks launched the city’s first-ever Chefs Council in September 2022, in partnership with Wellness in the Schools. The council is developing over 100 scratch-cooked, plant-based, and culturally relevant recipes and providing hands-on training for OFNS chefs. OFNS added a brand-new Sweet Potato Gumbo dish, developed by the Rachael Ray-led council, to their Plant Powered Friday’s menu in February 2023.
Another way New York City encourages students to participate in the meals program is to offer culturally responsive menu options. New York City serves halal and kosher meals at schools across the city and adapts its menus to ensure students from all backgrounds can find items they know and love in the cafeteria. On any given day, you might find Caribbean Style Beef Patty, Chicken Dumplings, Turkey Quesadilla, or other items on our menus that reflect the cultural diversity of the city. All of these meals meet and exceed the highest nutrition standards from the USDA, with reduced levels of sodium, fat, and added sugar.
For decades, OFNS has realized they cannot innovate to serve students alone and has partnered with the USDA, health officials, policymakers, city agencies, academics, coalitions, sustainability organizations, health, education, and culinary nonprofits, staff, and students to ensure the tastiest and healthiest food is served on students’ plates. This has resulted in significant menu changes over the years, professional development opportunities for staff members, and advancements in food procurement and preparation that make culturally responsive and Plant Powered meals possible.
OFNS is thrilled to continue offering exciting options for students that is driven by their feedback.
Information Collection: SNAP: Performance Reporting System, Management Evaluation
In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, this notice invites the general public and other public agencies to comment on this proposed information collection. This is a revision of a currently approved collection and existing burden in use without a valid OMB control number in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This information collection is for the Performance Reporting System and management evaluation processes, which ensure that SNAP state agencies are operating the program in accordance with statute and regulations. The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and SNAP state agencies use this information to evaluate state agency operations and to collect information necessary to develop solutions to improve the state's administration of SNAP policy and procedures.
The purpose of the Performance Reporting System (PRS) is to ensure that each state agency and project area is operating the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in accordance with the requirements of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (the Act) (7 USC 2011, et seq.), as amended, and corresponding program regulations. Under Section 11 of the Act, all 53 SNAP state agencies must maintain records to ascertain that the program is operating in compliance with the Act and regulations by conducting state management evaluations in each of their project areas as outlined in 7 CFR 275.5. Management evaluations (MEs) are reviews that state agencies complete at local SNAP offices to monitor program access, program integrity, and operations. States must make these records available to the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for inspection and audit. To conduct federal oversight of state operations, FNS regional offices also conduct federal management evaluations of state agencies in all 53 SNAP states in accordance with 7 CFR 275.3(a) and (b).
This information collection is for the Performance Reporting System and management evaluation processes, which ensure that SNAP state agencies are operating the program in accordance with statute and regulations.
Improving the Shopping Experience
We want WIC families to be able to shop simply and conveniently, just like other shoppers. FNS is supporting WIC state agencies as they modernize the shopping experience in store, online, and at farmers markets, through both funding and waivers.
See below for more information.
Key Activities
Expanding Online Shopping
Giving WIC families the ability to shop for food online will make participating in WIC easier and more attractive to busy families. Therefore, it is one of the ways USDA FNS is working to improve nutrition security.
In FY 2020, FNS awarded a cooperative agreement to the Center for Nutrition and Health Impact (CNHI) (formerly the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition) to develop and test WIC online shopping through state agency-led projects. These projects began rolling out in FY 2024.
On Feb. 29th, CNHI released the second-round WIC Online Shopping Sub-grant Project Request for Proposals (RFP). We encourage all WIC state agencies interested in implementing WIC online shopping projects to apply. Proposals are due by May 9th at 5 PM CT. For more information on this opportunity, visit the WICShop+ website.
Over the next three years, CNHI will provide additional subgrant opportunities to state agencies. CNHI will also create resources to support streamlined implementation of online shopping using lessons learned from current projects. Resources will include project planning and implementation documentation, technical resources, and trainings. CNHI released an updated version of the Blueprint for WIC Online Shopping Projects in January 2024, and plans to release additional updates on a continual basis.
Visit the Center for Nutrition and Health Impact Online Shopping Grant website for more information.
Related Resources
- Online Shopping Project Website: https://www.wicshopplus.org/
- RFP: WIC Online Shopping Sub-grant Project Request for Proposals (2/29/24)
- Planning Tool: Blueprint for WIC Online Ordering Projects (1/19/24)
- Proposed Rule: WIC Online Ordering and Transactions (02/23/23)
- Questions and Answers (02/23/23)
- Press Release (02/17/23)
- Stakeholder Briefing (03/03/23)
- List of ARPA waivers issued in support of online shopping projects
- FNS Guidance: How to apply for an ARPA waiver to support an online shopping project (11/2/21)
- Report: Task Force on Supplemental Food Delivery in the WIC Program (10/1/21)
- FNS Press Release: USDA Expands Access to Online Shopping in SNAP, Invests in Future WIC Opportunities (11/2/20)
We want WIC families to be able to shop simply and conveniently, just like other shoppers. FNS is supporting WIC state agencies as they modernize the shopping experience in store, online, and at farmers markets, through both funding and waivers.
Food Safety Information and Resources for the Farm to School Community
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) work together to ensure the Nation's food supply is safe. This fact sheet outlines a number of additional resources for those seeking to directly purchase or raise food products for school nutrition programs. These resources include guides for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and programs operated by state agencies to support compliance with produce safety rules.
This fact sheet outlines a number of additional resources for those seeking to directly purchase or raise food products for school nutrition programs.
