From the field to the cafeteria
Farm-to-School effort takes root in School District 9-R

Yuri Buscaglia, son of Sarah and Tom, stands in a field of garlic at the family’s RAS farms earlier this summer. More local produce is making its way to local kids’ mouths through a Farms to School partnership in local school cafeterias./Photo by David Halterman

by Will Sands

Locally raised meat, vegetables and grains are beginning to take the place of canned peas and tater tots in La Plata County. Area schoolchildren are reaping the benefits of locally farmed food now that Durango’s Farm-to-School effort is picking up momentum.

Farm to School is a national effort rooted in a basic concept. Schools, the most community-driven of all institutions, should get their food from the source – local farms and ranches. Children’s nutritional needs are better served, students gain valuable education about food systems and local environmental issues, and local farmers get a much-needed financial boost.

Farm-to-School was a natural fit for Jim Dyer, whose Southwest Marketing Network is dedicated to helping small-scale Southwest agricultural operations market their produce. Three years ago, Dyer saw an opportunity and became La Plata County’s Farm to School coordinator. Since that time, the effort has overcome the odds and picked up steam. As a result, students in each of Durango School District 9-R’s 10 schools now have regular access to locally grown foods.

“There’s always been a gap between the cost of locally grown foods and the penny-pinching approach our society takes toward school lunch,” Dyer said. “But in La Plata County, we’re working hard to overcome that tradition.”

For example, local students have had access to organic greens from Turtle Lake Refuge in 9-R’s salad bars for the last two years. This fall students are dining on tomatoes and broccoli from Cole Ranch. Breakfast burritos are wrapped in locally made Tortillas Mas Finas, and Blue Horizon Farm provides locally grown cracked wheat cereal for students’ breakfasts at least once a month. During the all-staff breakfast Aug. 15, the meal was entirely local and included locally made bagels, locally grown apple cider, and quiche and zucchini bread baked entirely from locally grown ingredients.

In the coming week, 9-R will observe National School Lunch Week and celebrate by having a locally grown item on the menu each day. Among the offerings will be flour from Blue Horizon Farm, apples from Cole Ranch, and Colorado potatoes from the San Luis Valley.

“The food is fresh, it’s local, and it teaches the kids about sustainability. The benefits are huge. I wish we could do more,” said Krista Garand, 9-R’s director of food services.

Dyer agreed that there are far-reaching benefits to having locally grown foods in the cafeteria. “It’s a new market for local producers,” he said. “It should increase students’ understanding and the understanding of everyone they touch about local agriculture. And it helps the community by keeping money circulating locally.”

This year, the local Farm-to-School also took a big financial leap forward. Each of the district’s 10 schools now has a budget specifically for local foods. In addition, 9-R has created a mechanism whereby donations can be made to Farm-to-School to further boost the local offerings for the lunch line.

“There’s a real push to look beyond conventional budgeting issues on the part of 9-R to get this food into the schools,” Dyer said. “The school district has been very accommodating, and we’re pretty fortunate to have that on our side.”

Durango’s road from Farm-to-School has not always been a smooth one, however. “It’s been a learning process for everybody,” Garand said.

Creating communication networks between the local farms and schools has been a challenge, she said. Durango’s short and unpredictable growing season also makes planning a menu difficult and has the local foods often making last-minute appearances in the salad bar. Financing is also a constant difficulty for Farm-to-School. School lunch federal subsidies and the existing stream of inexpensive food encourage schools to shy away from local growers. Finally, huge need coupled with limited supply has presented the biggest test for La Plata County’s Farm-to-School effort.

“The scale of what we do is the biggest challenge,” Garand said. “We serve 1,700 meals a day, and that’s why we’re doing our best with individual offerings. The salad bars offer us a lot of flexibility, and we focus a lot on breakfast because the volume isn’t as great.”

The local Farm-to-School effort is also hoping to someday lean more heavily on local farmers. Garand and Dyer agreed that much of the effort’s success depends on the supplier.

“We’d like to do as much as possible, but our growing season is short and a lot of it depends on the farmer,” Garand said. “Some of them are thrilled to be working with us and giving us a good deal. Others are a different story, and we’ve had some pretty scary invoices come across the desk.”

Dyer added that some of the education effort is being directed at the growers. “We’re putting in a lot of work to attract more growers,” he said. “They need to know that this market is no different than growing for the Farmer’s Market or our local market. We need to start looking at the community as a whole.”

For her part, Garand is interested in gradually growing Farm-to-School as one component of a school lunch program devoted to wellness, health and education. “My goal is to serve the healthiest food possible to the kids,” she said. “Right now we serve fruits and vegetables every day and in a couple weeks, we’ll have salad bars serving some local greens and vegetables in all 10 schools. That’s pretty progressive. We want to continue to take baby steps toward increasing the quality of foods and getting more local food on the table.”

Dyer agreed that the path to Farm-to-School will involve lots of these baby steps. But he added that the hardest steps should already be in the past.

“Yes, it is going to be a long process,” he said. “But we’ve made strong gains, people have really rallied around this, and we want to keep the momentum. We know we have limits, but we’re not going to be passive, and we plan on engaging the community every step of the way.” •