Sustenance for Students is Best Homegrown
by Joy Franklin
published August 7, 2005 12:15 am
More WNC schools warming up to wisdom of buying produced from local farmers
A couple of years ago, Harold Davis heard from a neighbor that the schools in Yancey County couldn’t afford to buy lettuce because the price had gotten too high.
Davis, a Yancey County farmer who was growing lettuce at the time, took enough samples of his crop to the school system’s central office for several people to take home and try.
Soon, he was supplying the Yancey County Schools with homegrown lettuce that was fresher, tastier and healthier than anything they could have bought from their usual supplier.
“It was that entrepreneurial spirit of farmers,” says Emily Jackson, Growing Minds Project Director for the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP).
Harold Davis and his wife, Sandra, whose farm and produce stand are located near Burnsville, became pioneers, the first farmers in the region to tap into a national movement that encourages school cafeterias to buy food they serve from local farmers.
It’s a movement that’s slowly gaining momentum in Western North Carolina. During the coming year, children in four school systems will be eating produce from local farms. In addition to the Davises in Yancey County, Sam Silvers will be supplying potatoes, Sara Runkel will be supplying spinach, lettuce and greens and Jim Saylor will be supplying apples in Mitchell County. And, for the second year, Dewain Mackey will be supplying lettuce and expanding into cabbage, zucchini, spinach and tomatoes to Madison County Schools and Asheville City Schools.
Tobacco farmers who are transitioning to new crops, the Davises and Mackey got a grant from ASAP to expand their greenhousees so that they could grow vegetables year-round. The Davises also provide cucumbers to the Yancey County Schools.
Their farms and others were featured on Farm to School Field Day tours held in late July to introduce school food service workers to the farmers and build awareness of the fresh vegetables and fruits available locally.
In Yancey County, the cafeteria workers met Fred Woodby, a tobacco farmer who is working hard to transition to other crops and to find new markets.
“He’s really pulled out all the stops,” Yancey County Agricultural Extension Agent Jean Harrison said of Woodby.
Woodby’s crops include heirloom beans and tomatoes, corn and vegetables grown for the Hispanic market, such as jalapeños. He also grows sorghum and makes molasses and is setting up a small sawmilling operation.
Still, he said, “This is probably the most insecure year of my life.”
The seeds for the heirloom vegetables such as white greasy beans, brown greasy beans and candy strip tomatoes have been passed down through his family for several generations, Woodby said. They are crops that take a lot of hand labor, so big commercial farms won’t grow them.
“But small farmers have it all over the big guys,” Jackson said. “They’re going to grow the things that taste the best.”
“Our families eat this food,” Woodby said. “We’re not going to put anything on these crops that’s going to hurt our children or grandchildren.”
Woodby told of a young neighbor who had never tried a lot of the foods Woodby himself grew up on.
“He’s getting to where he likes squash and beans,” Woodby said with a grin. “Kids don’t know what food is. … When we grew up, farming was the livelihood of this county, but now we’re a dying breed. When we bring all the food in processed from someplace else, it’s really sad that we can’t tell our kids here that they can grow up and be farmers.”
Finding new markets to help stop the loss of family farms in Western North Carolina is a major objective of ASAP, and the Farm to School program is one promising effort toward that end. Part of the goal is to maintain a local food system, so the region can be self-reliant when it comes to food supply, Jackson said. It seems inevitable that as the price of gasoline goes up, produce trucked across the U.S or flown in from other countries will become more and more expensive. Without a WNC source, local markets and their customers will have no choice but to do without or pay whatever it costs. Another benefit of saving local farms is the preservation of the region’s rural landscape.
“What we have here is what most people want,” Jackson said. “We have it and we need to keep it.”
Developing markets for local farmers is only one objective of the Farm to School program, however. Equally important is providing schoolchildren with fresh, nutritious food and a connection to the way food is grown and to the people who grow it.
“When food has to travel from California, it’s losing nutrients all the time,” Jackson said.
“We’d rather have it,” Ruth Laws, who works in the cafeteria at South Toe Elementary School, said of the locally grown produce. “It’s a lot better than the stuff they bring in on the trucks.”
By giving youngsters a chance to develop a taste for fresh vegetables and fruits, the schools are helping them form habits that will serve them well throughout their lifetime. Such habits will help them avoid obesity and diseases attributable to poor eating practices, diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
But Jackson sees the Farm to School program as more than good nutrition for children. It’s an opportunity to educate children about food systems and the environment. She says there are four components to the Farm to School program: cafeterias serving locally grown produce; farm visits by students; school gardens; and nutritional education.
“Children like to eat what they grow,” she says.
But there are some challenges to serving locally grown produce in school cafeterias. The biggest one is funding. School cafeterias get no subsidies. They survive entirely on the less than $3 each they get for school lunches. The federal government pays part or all of that for children who receive free or reduced lunches. From that money school cafeterias must buy food and equipment, pay for repairs and custodial care, and pay salaries for workers.
They are also bound by federal regulations that require an open competitive bidding process.
Buying local produce “is more expensive for us,” said Cindy Lawler, child nutrition director for Asheville City Schools, who participated in the farm tours in late July. That means she’s required to do a lot of additional paper -work to justify buying from local farmers. Though local produce might not be more expensive for other systems or in other circumstances, Lawler said, the hoops they have to jump through is a disincentive to school food service directors.
Nevertheless, Lawler is committed to expanding the amount of locally grown produce served in Asheville City Schools.
“I want to provide the healthiest, freshest option to our students that we can. Then, I want to support the local economy, because that’s our students too,” Lawler said.
The tours held in July were an outgrowth of a Farm to School workshop held at Jubilee Church in Asheville in 2004. ASAP convened the workshop and invited food service directors, nutritionists, farmers and others from school systems in six Western North Carolina counties.
The workshop was led by an organization called the Community Food Security Coalition, which is dedicated to building strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems.
“What came from the day was a real sense that people thought it was a great idea, and a desire on the part of people to continue to work on it,” Jackson said. There was also a realization that school food service workers didn’t know what local farmers grow.
Two actions resulted. A Farm to School Committee was formed that includes farmers, school nutrition directors, cooperative extension agents and others. And the Farm to School tours were organized with grants from the Risk Management Agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust Fund.
The tours were held in Mitchell, Yancey and Madison counties.
The Farm to School Committee and ASAP realize that it will take time to incorporate more locally grown food into school cafeterias. But through building awareness of local agriculture and the benefit students receive from eating fresh, locally grown food, they hope to continue expanding the program in schools where it already exists and introducing it to schools in other counties. In the process they hope to help ensure regional food security, strengthen the local economy and encourage healthy eating habits in WNC students.
Readers may contact Franklin at 828-232-5895 or by e-mail at Jfranklin@CITIZEN-TIMES.com
Contact Joy Franklin at 828-232-5895 or via e-mail at jfrankli@ashevill.gannett.com.
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