Written by VIRGINIA MARTIN
THE FARM TO SCHOOL CONCEPT centers on the notion that feeding local, farm-fresh foods to our school children is superior to giving them foods that aren't local, are probably processed and not fresh, and came from who-knows-where after being raised by (probably corporate) farmers and processed by related corporate entities.
It's a nice ideal. In reality, it's difficult (and currently impossible) to fully achieve. Practical food-service pros like Paul Ventura from Greenville Central and Pam Strompf from Taconic Hills marry the two to reap the benefits of both. Under the aegis of the Healthcare Consortium's Kids in Motion program, Ventura and Strompf recently met with other Taconic Hills food-service staff to share tips for making the most of resources while aiming for the farm-to-school goal. [more...]
_________________________________________Please see Green Living Technologies' website for more information about Edible Walls.
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Farm to School:
“Gourmet-ish” School Food
By Virginia Martin
Farm to School consultant
Register Star, August 25, 2011Paul Ventura is the Food Service Supervisor at Greenville Central School District in Greene County. He’s no stranger to the farm-to-school movement. He propagates relationships with his local farmers because he loves the fresh produce he gets from them. Of late, his weekly “What have you got?” call to his farmers has been resulting, to his delight, in hearing names of foods he’s never before heard of, even as a trained chef.
It seems that our local farmers, entrepreneurial and responding to customer demand, are raising a cornucopia of unusual, intriguing, and delectable products.
Ventura’s response to his farmers is always, “Great! I’ll take it,” which sometimes is followed by “What is it?”
Planting a food story
Written by VIRGINIA MARTIN
The Columbia Paper, 11 July 2011
THE CONCEPT of “farm to school” burst on the scene in the mid-'90s, when a handful of programs sprouted in California and Florida. Berkeley's Edible Schoolyard was one such, and it transformed an inner-city schoolyard, a sea of blacktop, into an extensive, verdant garden that in turn transformed children's lives. Responding to those successful initiatives, in 2001 the US Department of Agriculture's Small Farms/School Meals Initiative cultivated similar projects in Kentucky, Iowa and Oregon. Now there are more than 2,000 programs nationwide.
Columbia County's Farm to School program may seem new, but it's been developing over some years. The concept of food as something that, voila! magically appears only to satisfy requirements of palatability and low cost, is, we hope, entering its twilight among the broader population. In our schools, that outdated food concept has been a subject of enormous concern and discussion, and our teachers and school food services had been keeping a sharp eye on the various farm-to-school efforts elsewhere that were improving, among other things, children's health and nutrition.
[more...]
Farm to School:
A great start in Germantown
By Virginia Martin
Farm to School consultant
These teachers also say their students are sampling and enjoying foods that in years past would get a quick and unambiguous thumbs-down. For example, a fresh spinach salad lightly dressed with oil and vinegar: 5th graders quite literally gobbled it up. And a lettuce salad had 4th graders coming back for seconds and thirds. [more ...]
From Farm to School:
Henry Hudson’s new worm discoveries
Written by VIRGINIA MARTIN
The Columbia Paper, June 18, 2011
That’s because they know that all the best gardens have lots of worms—they’re a sign of life and vitality. Worms help make new soil—and, unless we’re going hydroponic, we need soil to grow food! Which everybody eats, typically three times a day. Fruits, vegetables, grasses, and grains, and the cows, pigs, chickens, and other livestock that get butchered for our dining tables—they either want to grow in soil, or they want to eat what does! [ more...]
Butterflies, Berries, and Birds — Oh My!
By Virginia Martin
Farm to School Consultant
Register Star, June 2, 2011
A modest butterfly garden at Ichabod Crane’s Primary School is blossoming into a much bigger enterprise. It’s got the K-2 girls and boys beaming. They can get their hands dirty and make their teachers happy at the same time!
School gardens like Ichabod’s are part of the Farm to School movement. They turn a little bit of the schoolyard into a farm, and when harvest time rolls around, guess who’s excited about those fruits and vegetables? The students who raised them. If they plant it, water it, harvest it, wash it, prepare it, and/or cook it, they tend to eat it (or at least try it). [more...]
FROM FARM TO SCHOOL:
Harvesting science and technology
Written by VIRGINIA MARTIN
The Columbia Paper, 19 May 2011
AT TACONIC HILLS CENTRAL SCHOOLS, located in agriculture-centric Craryville, HARVEST isn't just about bringing in a crop. It's an acronym for an award-winning educational program begun during Taconic's 2009-10 school year.
The volunteers and educators that lead the HARVEST Club use agriculture to teach science, technology, and a host of other subjects. “Healthy Agricultural Resources by Volunteers & Educators in Science and Technology” is the club's full name, and already it's garnered awards for the school district. That's not just locally, but nationally. [more...]
Schools trying to provide
healthier lunches
By Kari Rieser, Kids in Motion Program Coordinator
Register Star, Letter to Editor
Published: Wednesday, March 23, 2011
School meals are getting a lot of attention these days, not only at the federal level with stricter nutritional standards, as the article (“USDA: Let’s revise lunch” in the March 11 Register-Star) pointed out. This is also happening at the local level, where every food service director in the county’s six districts has been working hard to provide the highest-quality lunches possible. These directors operate under very stiff financial constraints, but manage to put out thousands of increasingly nutritious meals every day. [more ...]
_________________________________________Healthcare Consortium Brings Fresh Food from Farms to Schools
October 12, 2010, Hudson, NY: The Healthcare Consortium’s Farm to School program, which brings fresh, locally grown food right from the farm to the school cafeteria, is doing a brisk business during this bountiful harvest season.
So far this fall, students at the Hudson, Taconic Hills, Chatham, and Germantown schools are reaping the extra benefits of lunch plates heaped with very local food that’s especially nutritious and fresh. Ichabod Crane and New Lebanon aren’t far behind; they’ve also shown great interest and will likely be on board to receive next spring’s bounty.
Students have their schools’ food-service staff, also, to thank for the enhanced freshness and nutrition available in their lunches. The vegetables and fruits that come to the school fresh from the farm place more demands on the food-service crews, because fresh foods require more preparation than the food that comes to them from their typical commercial bid sheets. School staff think it’s worth it. “There’s nothing like fresh from the farm,” said Cathy Drumm, food service director at Hudson City School District, “even if it takes a little more effort on our part. Produce is beautiful, and something I noticed is that the freshness allows for a longer shelf life and higher yield, hence reduced ordering needs. This also helps offset the higher initial cost.”
In past years, all schools in the county have participated, in one way or another, directly or via a distributor like Chatham’s Real Food Network, by purchasing direct from the farm. The Consortium’s Farm to School program expects to coordinate and substantially increase every school’s participation. It also is working to engage more local farms in feeding the students who study in schools just down the road from their fields—the schools where their children or their neighbors’ children eat their lunches, and often their breakfasts.
According to Kids in Motion program coordinator Kari Rieser, it’s not just the food services that are enthusiastic and ready to do what’s needed; farmers, too, are on board, and some are prepared to plant next year’s crops specifically with an eye to feeding the county’s schools. “Farmers are excited to be part of this effort. They appreciate just how important it is that our young people eat good, nutritious food, and they want to be the ones to grow it.”
The Farm to School effort is part of the Consortium’s Kids in Motion program, geared at children in grades K-5, which works to combat childhood obesity in the county. Kids in Motion also promotes recreation programs around the county that make young people more active, and thus healthier. One such program is the Walking School Bus, recently launched at Hudson’s John L. Edwards Elementary School, which supervises young children as they walk to school rather than ride the bus. Another is Foot Traffic Friday, which makes walking in Hudson safer by placing traffic-calming crosswalk markers at pedestrian crossings. Kids in Motion also sponsors the Kids to the Farm program, which takes school children from many Columbia County schools to the farms to see how and where local food comes from.
Hudson City School District:
Fresh garden vegetables meet school salad bar
Register Star
Published: Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Recently, the salad bar at the Hudson school district has been offering vegetables grown in the school's garden. [more ...]