Raised on a farm in Cayuga County, I grew up eating fresh food grown and preserved by my grandparents. We were surrounded by close-knit neighbors who helped one another during the busy haying season. Food and community became deeply embedded in my identity, and those values have followed me into my career in education.
I began teaching in 2009 and now run the “Farm to School” program in Newfield Central School District in Tompkins County. As we’ve seen a resurgence of smaller farms that sell direct to customers, there is a “real food movement” taking place in school cafeterias around the country. In partnership with the Chef Ann Foundation and the Park Foundation, Newfield is a part of the Tompkins County School Food Reboot program. Our child nutrition program emphasizes whole ingredients and scratch-cooked meals. We serve local foods from Tompkins County as much as possible.
Newfield Schools plan to participate in the 30% New York State Initiative, where school food programs can receive state reimbursement when they document that 30% or more of the food served to students is grown in New York. It’s a wonderful program, but there is one major hitch: The incentive only counts for lunch and it leaves out local food served for breakfast.
This exclusion adds a major administrative burden for schools to separate out their purchases, and disincentives schools from participating in the program.
New York is the only state with a local purchasing incentive program that limits their meals to lunch. As a result, state funds are reappropriated annually when schools are unable to meet the threshold with lunch purchases alone.
A bill currently before the Legislature would include breakfast and snacks in the 30% Initiative. The legislation was included in one-house budgets for the Senate and Assembly. Farm to School advocates are now urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to support our farmers and our students by including breakfast within the 30% Initiative in the final state budget.
More support is needed to make these farm-to-school programs successful for school districts like ours. This legislation will help school districts increase purchases of local food products and support thriving farm communities like the one I was raised in. Most importantly, our kids will benefit from increased access to fresh, New York-grown foods for all school meals.
Laurie Pattington is a farm-to-school teacher at TST BOCES, serving Tompkins, Seneca and Tioga counties.
