As this series of articles illustrates, farm-to-table is a movement that continues to grow in West Virginia. For one thing, in keeping with the basic economic supply and demand principle, as more people have sought local farm products, the number of farmers markets in our state has more than doubled in the last five years to fill that need.
Another example is that farm-to-fork has become an integral component in the child nutrition programs in our schools - what is called nationally the farm-to-school movement. These child nutrition programs not only provide an opportunity to ensure our kids get sound, healthy food choices, but feeding them locally grown foods actually recycles dollars back into the local economy in a way it never did before.
A case in point can be seen in the Kanawha system, where, under the direction of Diane Miller, the food service director, the county is spending approximately $100,000 annually on local farm products to serve students in all 66 schools. These dollars, which were previously padding the wallets of agri-industrialists in California or Mexico, now stay right here, benefiting our West Virginia economy.
There are actually more than 25 farmers growing and selling their local products, ranging from the fruits and vegetables served on salad bars for students' lunches, to the pumpkins and blueberries baked into muffins for a first-thing-in-the-morning nutritious snack.
Similarly, our neighboring Putnam county has vigorously been very involved in farm-to-school for several years as the food service director for the county, Stella Young, has been persistent in seeking farmers to purchase local products for her schools' menus. Young's efforts to have fresh, local produce available for her students has not, however, been limited to school lunches.
She and Chuck Talbot, the West Virginia University Extension Agent for the county, teamed up on a number of initiatives to ensure the children in Putnam County schools have access to gardens, where the students themselves are raising some of their own food.
In these settings, students have hands-on experiences in a real-world classroom with a garden-based learning curriculum. A number of schools have high tunnels (a more affordable version of a greenhouse), so the number of months available in their growing season is extended significantly.
These initiatives demonstrate that the mental picture the words "child nutrition program" frequently bring to mind for many of us - one that refers simply to a traditional school lunch - is far from the way the program currently functions.
In Kanawha and Putnam counties, schools have also incorporated local products into their innovative grab-and-go breakfasts - breakfast muffins, after-school snacks, child care programs - as well as the suppers served to those students involved in after-school activities, who remain in the building late in the afternoon.
Initiatives like these in support of students' health, exist not only in our local counties, but are available, in some variation or another, throughout West Virginia.
The latest United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm to School Census reports that 247,244 students statewide are currently benefiting from this program, either from local food served in the school cafeterias or in school gardens.
The West Virginia Department of Education Office of Child Nutrition actually became proactive a few years ago in helping farmers across the state learn how to more easily make in-roads into school systems' food purchasing bureaucracy.
In addition, through grant funding made available by the USDA, the department initiated a model program in a five-county area in the north-central part of the state - Preston, Upshur, Randolph, Tucker and Barbour counties - to provide technical assistance to farmers to increase the amount of locally grown food available to students.
Another important component of this initiative provides students with hands-on experience in growing their own food in school gardens, to supplement and make their classroom instruction more meaningful. It also affords students opportunities to explore career options.
Melinda Griser, local food coordinator for the program, has been able to support and provide coaching for a number of interesting farm-to-school projects.
One of the sites is the Linwood Community Daycare, a community-established and supported nonprofit agency in Slatyfork. Teresa White, the treasurer of the center, created a program for the children that allows them to learn about plants and food production by involving them in the planting and harvesting of produce the center grows to sell and raise funds that contribute to its upkeep.
At the present time, the products are cucumbers and tomatoes, which are being sold at local farmers markets. But White has also approached the Randolph County school system about buying them, as well as lettuce, which will soon be available.
Recently, when the center found it had a bumper crop of cucumbers, it shared its bounty by donating some to the Pocahontas County Senior Center in Marlinton. This level of production is possible because the vegetables are grown in a high tunnel, one that was made available by a USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant, part of a program administered through the West Virginia Department of Agriculture.
Another front-runner in the use of local farm products in the school cafeteria is Tucker County High School. Not only has Tucker County made a serious commitment to purchasing local food, but for the past several years, ProStart students (a high school culinary apprenticeship-type program) have been preserving local farm products, many times grown by their fellow students, in their kitchen, and then selling them to the school district.
This past school year, under the watchful eye of their ProStart teacher Carrie Shahan, students blanched, vacuum-sealed and froze vegetables that they then sold to the school district to be served in the cafeteria. This approach, one of the most highly innovative in the state, was initiated several years ago by Chef Brian Covell when he was the ProStart teacher working with J.R. Helmick, then-assistant principal.
Colleges can also be added to the mix of day care centers and schools that buy locally. Chef Melanie Campbell at Davis and Elkins College is a great advocate of using local food and has been purchasing products from Preston, Barbour and Upshur County farmers. This summer and fall, the college has been treated to local sausage and fresh vegetables including broccoli, bell peppers, tomatoes, lettuces, eggs, cucumbers, squash, sweet corn, onions, cantaloupe, zucchini, cabbage, scallions and snap peas, raised within a relatively short drive from campus.
Griser's most recent project is production planning - a model where she brings farmers together with perspective buyers months in advance of planting. Buyers come with an estimated idea of what they will want to purchase and the quantity they will need on a weekly basis.
The farmers then decide what they are interested in growing. A general idea of price to be paid for the product is often set at the meeting. The county school systems she has lined up to be part of the upcoming planning discussion include: Barbour, Lewis, Preston, Randolph, Tucker and Upshur counties.
Griser describes the process she is putting into place in this way: "The farmers give a relatively specific time period of when they expect the product will become available for the buyer. Production planning results in a detailed plan and informal agreement between the farmer and the buyer. This agreement allows a relationship to be established and local product to be mostly guaranteed to be purchased even before it is planted in the ground - a huge advantage for farmers."
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Correction to my last article: Terry Hudson did construct three school high tunnels (at West Teays with a Specialty Crop Block Grant, a grant distributed by the West Virginia Department of Agriculture), Hometown (Lowes) and Rock Branch (SCBG). But one of the photos was of the tunnel at George Washington Elementary School in Putnam County and incorrectly attributed its construction to him, whereas it was actually constructed by Matt and Penny Goff from Gritt's Midway Greenhouse, which also supplies seeds for five schools (soon to be six), parasitic wasps and mites, an irrigation system, mulch, etc.