$14.3M Boost for local foods in US schools

Jul 16, 2024

USDA's record investment aims to enhance meal quality in schools

By Farms.com

The USDA has announced a groundbreaking investment of $14.3 million in the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grants, marking the largest allocation to date aimed at improving school meal quality and supporting local agriculture.

This funding will assist 154 projects in 43 states plus territories, impacting approximately 1.9 million students by providing them access to fresh, locally sourced foods.

This initiative not only aims to improve the nutritional intake of students but also supports local farmers, making schools a pivotal market for local agriculture.

The grants are an integral part of the Biden-Harris Administration's initiative to end hunger and enhance health through better nutrition by 2030.

Secretary Vilsack emphasized the dual benefits of the program, highlighting its role in combating food and nutrition insecurity among children while supporting local economies.

The program facilitates educational opportunities for students, including hands-on activities like gardening, which enrich their understanding of food systems and encourage healthy eating habits.

The new USDA regulations also support the initiative by allowing schools more flexibility to source locally grown, unprocessed foods, thus fostering an environment where children learn to appreciate the importance of nutrition from a young age.

Through these comprehensive efforts, the USDA continues to demonstrate its commitment to transforming school food environments, enhancing children’s health, and supporting American agriculture.

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators