LB396 creates new opportunities for farm-to-school meals | Nebraska Today

Every weekend in Nebraska, you can visit over 100 farmers markets and buy dozen of locally grown fruits and vegetables. Or stop by one of hundreds of roadside stalls or dozen of you-pick establishments. Nebraska grows a lot more than cattle and corn. But most of what Nebraska students eat doesn’t come from the state.

“Research over the past few years has shown that more than 90% (of food) is imported from outside of the state,” said Benjamin McShane-Jewell, assistant extension instructor for Rural Prosperity Nebraska.

With Bill 396, however, he and others aim to change that relationship. The Adopt the Nebraska Farm-to-School Program Act, established by Senator Tom Brandt, retains funds to create new and promote existing farm-to-school nutrition programs. The bill was passed unanimously in May with two objectives:

• Provide school children with fresh, unprocessed meals and introduce them to healthy eating habits. These include field trips to farms, cooking classes, and gardening and composting programs.

• Grow Nebraska Farmers Income.

“Every year, $ 65-70 million worth of groceries is only bought for school programs,” said McShane-Jewell. “This is a huge market that has not yet been sufficiently developed for local producers.”

McShane-Jewell is based in Washington County and has worked with the Regional Food Systems Division of Rural Prosperity Nebraska for the past three years. Before that, he spent 10 years building urban farming projects such as community gardens across the country, mostly on a small scale.

“It gets really tricky when you think of a school district like Lincoln or Omaha that has 25,000 to 50,000 students every day,” said McShane-Jewell. “This amount is going to be hard to come by.”

Like an invoice LB396 provides funding, he said, to organize and establish farm-to-school programs on a nationwide basis, which requires extensive coordination.

Creating links between producers and schools is at the heart of LB396. This is where Sara Smith comes in. As a farm-to-school specialist for the Nebraska Department of Education, Smith is charged with organizing farming programs that connect schools with producers. One such nationwide initiative, Nebraska Thursdays, encourages schools to serve local meals on the first Thursday of each month. Another program, Harvest of the Month, features a different specialty crop from Nebraska each month and provides schools with the resources to serve these plants to their students.

“This is all an effort to lead schools towards products that can be grown in Nebraska in the hopes that we will see an increase in purchases from local growers,” said Smith.

“We spoke to a lot of buyers; they want to source locally. We spoke to local producers; they want to sell to schools, ”said McShane-Jewell. “We’re just trying to fill in these loopholes.”

One attempt to close such gaps in the 2021-22 school year is a school gardening program. Schools build greenhouses on the site and students are taught about agriculture. The food produced goes straight to the school cafeteria. But students are only one side of the coin.

“In 2022 we will be running training courses for producers across the state,” said McShane-Jewell. Hopefully this will help them interact with schools more confidently and work with them to produce what (the schools) need. “

While each school has different student bodies and resources, both McShane-Jewell and Smith have high hopes for the future.

“As they say, ‘If you want to get to the top of the trees, shoot at the moon,’ so I’m a big believer that we have to make it really big here,” said McShane-Jewell. “There are models out there that set targets for 10% or 15% locally. I would love to see Nebraska get really ambitious and think of 50%, 75%, 100% local.

“So much is produced in this state. It’s just: How do we turn the tide in the direction of another marketplace? “

One immediate step is the Mountain Plains Crunch Off, an eight-state contest that celebrates October as National Farm to School Month. Who can encourage most residents to “grind” a piece of fresh product?

“Nebraska has been the reigning champion for two years in a row,” said McShane-Jewell, “so let’s keep it going.”

You can find more information about the Mountain Plains Crunch Off here. For more information on rural prosperity in Nebraska, please visit here.

source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/22/lb396-creates-new-opportunities-for-farm-to-school-meals-nebraska-today/