Bring schools and students closer

Bring schools and students closer

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
A USDA grant program recently funded its most recent group of projects designed to bring schools and students closer to their local farmers and ranchers. Here's deputy undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Stacy Dean outlining the farm to school grant program. Point here is to help expand kids access to fresh local food and meals served in their schools or in the child care setting. And we think that this increases their exposure to farmers and we hope inspires them to want to grow up to be farmers. One example would be a school garden where kids can learn how to plant, plow and harvest their own food. And you can build in elements of science, math and nutrition as part of learning. There's also bringing kids out to farms, teaching them about what is the work that farmers do and how is the food that they eat. Where does it come from and how does it move through the supply chain? These grants also support connecting producers to schools for markets and making sure that schools are helping support schools who want to buy food and produce from local growers to support that effort. This project is among a USDA announcement That the largest number of farm to school grants ever. It's about 12 million dollars across 45 states and the District of Columbia. So it's a significant number and it's got breadth across the country designed For kids who think that food comes from grocery stores.

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