An increasing number of schools are sourcing locally grown foods for their school meals and snacks and providing complementary educational activities that emphasize food, farming, and nutrition. As a producer, large or small, this means that there are market opportunities in your own backyard and a chance for your bounty to nourish children in your community. You can play a role in supplying local products to schools to serve during breakfast, lunch, snack times and supper, as well as educating students about food and agriculture.
Here are some resources that can help you get started on incorporating your goods into school meals:
- Selling Local Foods to Schools: A Resource for Producers Fact Sheet
- Farm to School Grants Fact Sheet
- Grants and Loans that Support Farm to School Activities
- Bringing the Farm to School: A Training Program for Agriculture Producers
- Are you a producer looking to launch or grow your efforts to market to local schools? Local producer trainings are happening now across the country and U.S. territories, hosted by trained state agency teams. This training will provide producers with the resources and knowledge to expand marketing efforts to schools, including school sales logistics, satisfying procurement rules and regulations, and relationship-building with school food authorities (SFAs). Farm to school is unique in every community--learn more about selling your products to local schools. Details about this program, along with materials for producers to use and dates of upcoming state agency-led producer trainings, are available on the Bringing the Farm to School website. Bringing the Farm to School was developed by the USDA in cooperation with the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and the National Farm to School Network (NFSN).
Hungry for more information?
Please go to the Farm to School Fact Sheets Page.
For more information and to sign up for the Dirt, the e-letter from the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Program, visit www.fns.usda.gov/f2s/e-letter-archive.