Farm to School

Farm to School Arrives in British Columbia

Farm to school is not a new idea – it is a best practice operating in communities across the continent. One of the first programs was developed in Santa Monica, California (http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/he/farmtoschool.asp). Their program sought to connect schools with local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting local small farmers. In Canada similar programs have emerged, such as the Toronto Food Share Salad Bar program (http://www.foodshare.net/toolbox_salad01.htm. Today farm to school programs are organizing and linking through networks such as National Farm to School Online in the United States (http://www.farmtoschool.org).

In recent years, Farm to School programs emerged in a few locales in BC. However the notion of an initiative to support a network of Farm to School Salad Bar pilots in more rural and remote areas really took shape in the spring of 2007, during a Food Forum in Prince George, BC. The air was alive with salad bar excitement as a crowd of community food security enthusiasts listened to Debbie Field, the CEO of Toronto Food Share, speak about the concept. A whirlwind of activity followed as representatives from east met west creating a proposal and laying the foundation for a network of Farm to School Salad Bar Programs in communities within the interior and northern regions of BC.

In the spring of 2007, Northern Health was able to fund the first of these pilots at Dragon Lake Elementary School in Quesnel, BC. An evaluation report entitled: Changing The Way We Think About Feeding Our Kids has recently been released. The author concludes the program was “remarkably successful” - contributing to increased fruit and vegetable consumption, and enhanced knowledge and expertise about food, and the local food system amongst participating children.

By the fall of 2007 the concept caught the attention of the PHABC, a member of the BCHLA. The PHABC sought to support a program that utilized a health promotion approach to increase access to fresh vegetables and fruit for food insecure families. In January of 2008, BCHLA committed funding to the PHABC to design, develop and implement a Farm to School Salad Bar pilots in at least twelve schools!