The Missoula school meals program strives to use as much locally grown food as possible, nourishing the children with vitamins and fiber in the fresh produce and the whole wheat that’s used in some of the bread products. According to Michael Moore in a September 16, 2009 article in The Missoulian entitled “Tastes Like Home: Lolo Company Helps Students Bite into Food Grown Locally,” during the 2008 to 2009 school year 43,000 pounds of local foods were served to Missoula school children.
Local Small Business Helps Food Preparation
Sometimes the schools can get food directly from farmers, but often a middleman can help out. For example, a farmer may sell carrots at the local farmers’ market for two dollars a pound. But the schools need clean carrots peeled, cut into pennies and packed into five-pound bags.
Moore tells how a local company called Montana Food Products solves this problem by paying farmers a lower price for their produce before they plant their crops. This way the company can afford the cost of preparing the vegetables the way the schools need them and still sell for a low enough price. They also sell local beef and wheat and make some sauces used in school lunches.
Hands-on Learning for Children in Gardens and in the Classroom
There’s more to the program than the meals served at the schools. At Meadow Hill Middle School, garden plots raise strawberries, lettuce, carrots, and other foods. The children list the crops they want to plant and plan the garden, then help water, weed, and harvest. Children who like to dig can create a compost hole for dumping the weeds, while children learning Spanish make bilingual labels for each crop.
Even home-schooled children can get involved. One of them comments, “It’s fun for kids who live in an apartment and can’t have a garden. I like to see how a tiny little seed grows into food.”
The garden also produces food for the local food bank and grows flowers that the children can pick to make bouquets for a nearby nursing home.
At Cold Springs Elementary School, the children also learn about how food is grown. For example, in 2008, second graders planted special seeds that matured in just eight weeks. Then a Missoula Farm to School Program coordinator visited the classroom, bringing along Montana grown wheat. The children helped grind the wheat and turn it into biscuits, which they promptly devoured. Some liked the whole wheat biscuits so much they plan to make them at home.
Farm to School Programs Across America
The Montana program has attracted national attention, with the National Food Service Management Institute preparing a video of the Montana Food Products operation and also of local school cafeterias. The Institute recognizes that schools around the country can follow the Montana example and provide healthy, local foods to their students, too.
Everyone wins with a Farm to School program. The children learn about healthy eating and discover in the gardens where their food comes from. Their diet is healthier, with produce that packs more nutrition and tastes better than supermarket foods. Local farmers have a market for their crops, and the cost of shipping food, both in terms of money and carbon dioxide emissions, is greatly reduced.
Dorothy Patent - Dorothy H Patent has been writing nonfiction books for children for many years, as well as coauthoring adult nonfiction and writing for a ...
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