Abstract
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm to School Census, during the 2013–2014 school year, 42% of all U.S. schools (5,254 districts including 42,587 schools) participated in farm-to-school activities. These programs included 23.6 million children and purchased almost US$800 million of locally procured food items (USDA Food and Nutrition Services [USDA FNS], 2015). One of the purported benefits of farm-to-school procurement is that it strengthens the local economy by providing expanded market access for local farms and ranches. Despite the claims of positive economic impact, there is limited research to support this. This paper presents a framework for evaluating the economic impacts of farm-to-school programs, adapting the USDA’s “Local Food Economics Toolkit” for this specific context. The approach combines primary and secondary data to customize an input-output model, reflecting the complex supply chains that link producers and schools. Additionally, to illustrate the approach, we summarize the findings from two case studies of local food procurement by schools between 2016 and 2017. See the press release for this article.
Highlights
Farm-to-school is broadly defined “as a schoolbased program that connects schools (K-12) and local farms with the objectives of serving local and healthy foods in school cafeterias or classrooms, improving student nutrition, providing health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting small and medium-sized local and regional farmers” (Joshi, Azuma, & Feenstra, 2008, p. 230)
This paper presents a framework for evaluating the economic impacts of farm-to-school programs, adapting the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s “Local Food Economics Toolkit” for this specific context
Farm-to-school implementation differs by location, but always includes one or more of the following core elements: (1) procurement of local foods to be purchased, promoted, and/or served in the cafeteria or as a snack or taste-test; (2) education activities related to agriculture, food, health, or nutrition; and (3) school gardens (Christensen, Jablonski, Stephens, & Joshi, 2017)
Summary
Farm-to-school is broadly defined “as a schoolbased program that connects schools (K-12) and local farms with the objectives of serving local and healthy foods in school cafeterias or classrooms, improving student nutrition, providing health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting small and medium-sized local and regional farmers” (Joshi, Azuma, & Feenstra, 2008, p. 230). Best-practice economic impact assessments of farm-to-school food procurement require information from producers or available and relevant secondary sources to inform model data and assumptions (Thilmany McFadden et al, 2016).
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