Oxy Nets $2.34 Million Food Grant
(June 26, 2007)
Contact: Andy Faught
(323) 259-2534
Building on previous success in several states, a $2.34 million grant
from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will make it possible for the Center
for Food and Justice at Occidental College to establish and coordinate
– in collaboration with the Community Food Security Coalition – the
National Farm to School Network. The effort will link local farmers
with school cafeterias across the country, improving student nutrition
while giving small farmers access to a multi-billion dollar market.
The award is the second major gift to Occidental from the foundation.
In 2002, the college received a $691,000 grant to develop farm to
school programs throughout California. That award built on a $2 million
U.S. Department of Agriculture grant in 2000, in which Occidental
headed a national consortium of universities, school districts and
nonprofit groups to develop farm to school programs in California, New
Jersey and New York.
“The last decade has seen a rapid expansion in the farm to school
movement,” said Robert Gottlieb, Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban
Environmental Studies at Occidental and director of the Urban and
Environmental Policy Institute, which oversees the Center for Food and
Justice. “From a handful of programs in the late 1990s, today there are
more than 1,000 farm to school programs in 35 states that incorporate
nutrition education in the classroom and help influence the dietary
choices of children.”
Farm to school programs play an important role in combating a
disturbing trend: the number of overweight school-age children in the
United States tripled from 5 percent in 1980 to 15 percent in 2000. At
the same time, family farming in the United States is facing its own
crisis, with less than 2 percent of the population involved in the
profession. Initial evaluations have shown that farm to school can be
an effective strategy to increase school meal participation rates and
student consumption of fruits and vegetables, as well as enhance farm
income and usher diversification into institutional markets, said
Anupama Joshi, director of the National Farm to School Program.
The National Farm to School Network will focus on five key areas –
policy, networking, media and marketing, information services and
training, and technical assistance – to support the farm to school
movement. Support for the network is timely. This year, Congress is
preparing to enact the Farm Bill, a critical piece of food and farm
legislation that will impact what crops are grown on farms, and what
food is made available to schools and homes.
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Tags: CFJ, farm to school, food, Food Justice, food policy, health, healthy school food coalition, nutrition, occidental college, school food, uepi
