Another way to serve both the health of Metro Boston’s children and its farmers is to increase the interaction between local farms and schools.  This has the potential to benefit not only the Massachusetts schoolchildren that would have increased access to fresh, healthy produce, but the region’s independent farmers.  For more strategies to help small farmers, see Strategy 7 (Natural Landscapes).  Currently, the Commonwealth has a limited Farm-to-School program that, through technical assistance to farmers and individual schools, helped more than 85 public school districts and 13 colleges in the Commonwealth to serve local food.  Over 40 farms are currently selling to schools across the state.  There are many more school districts without this assistance, and the barriers to purchasing local produce – such as exclusive purchasing contracts between school cafeterias and certain vendors, or the inability of schools to cope with the increased work that comes with purchasing unprocessed produce rather than frozen pre-cooked lunches – can be hard to overcome.  It is only with a greatly expanded Farms-to-Schools program that the Commonwealth will begin to reach all of the schools in need of such technical assistance.

14.a    The Department of Agricultural Resources should expand the Farm-to-School program

14.b    The Department of Agricultural Resources should provide increased funding for Massachusetts Harvest for Students program

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