When national food supply chains broke during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government came up with the Local Food for Schools program. It directed money to help schools buy food from local farms. Wisconsin schools were supposed to get $9 million this year, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled the program.
Nationally, USDA is cutting two programs that provided about $1 billion in funding to schools and food banks to buy directly from local farms. That includes about $660 million this year for the Local Food for Schools program. The termination is effective May 6.
The Ashwaubenon School District is an example of who will feel the cut. Nutrition Coordinator Kaitlin Tauriainen says she won’t stop trying to bring local food into the menu, but it’s going to be harder. She’s also the president of the School Nutrition Association of Wisconsin. She says nutritionists are under a lot of pressure to plan menus while also following many regulations and pinching pennies. The Local Food for Schools dollars helped ease the burden.
In an interview with Mid-West Farm Report, Tauriainen explains that her school district receives about $4.50 from the government for every student in the free lunch program. That money covers not just food, but labor, equipment, lighting, garbage, etc. So the amount left over for food is roughly $2.00 per meal. Trying to get local ingredients and/or implementing a farm-to-school program is not that cheap.
The Local Foods for Schools program brought that budget up to almost $3.00 per meal, which Tauriainen says was a big deal not just for students, but for the economy. For every dollar spent, the ripple effect in the local economy reached up to $2.40.
She doesn’t know if any of the schools had to break contracts with growers after the program was canceled, but she does remind us that producers have already prepared for the growing season under the impression that agreements would happen.
“They already had their farming schedule in place, they had their seeds ordered, and they were ready to plant food for all the schools and the increased business that they were going to get,” she says of one farmer who provides food for schools. “So, they had their plans already laid out and ready to go for these funds.”
Asking The State To Step In
REAP Food Group calls the termination a “major blow” to Wisconsin. REAP Farm to School Director Allison Pfaff Harris says the demand is there to justify continuing the federal program or implementing a new state-run initiative to help schools acquire local food without breaking the bank.
“The termination of the Local Food for Schools and Child Care (LFSCC) program is a major blow to not only schools and farms around Wisconsin, but schools and farms throughout the country,” Pfaff Harris says. “Throughout my career, folks have asked me ‘How do we move local foods into schools?’. To me, it’s never been an issue of abundance or lack of interest by schools and farmers but a funding issue.”
REAP is asking the state Joint Finance Committee to enact its own Local Food for Schools program in the state biennial budget.
“We’d also like them to consider… more funding that’s similar to that federal LFS or that LFSCC program. Can we create something like that here in the state of Wisconsin?” Pfaff Harris explains.
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