Building Capacity: Farm to School

Building Capacity: Farm to School

Summary

This two year project is designed to build the capabilities of Extension, agricultural professionals, and communities in the development of Farm to School initiatives. Project team members will develop the training methodology, create outreach plans, devise a needs assessment tool, determine the scope of mentoring/consulting services, and develop a comprehensive project evaluation plan. A conference on how Extension professionals can engage with Farm to School is planned. Dissemination of materials and resources will be provided through the ASAP, SSAWG, and NFTSN websites. A team of project partners will present at a workshop at the National Farm to School Conference.

Objectives/Performance Targets

75 Cooperative Extension agents will define their role in the implementation of Farm to School programming. As the Farm to School movement continues to grow, farmers and other community members will look to Cooperative Extension for help implementing Farm to School initiatives. The workshops will provide Extension with the information and resources they need to define their role in this process. Several roles will be examined through the workshop trainings – farm and farmer assessments to meet school requirements, assistance implementing educational components of farm to school (help establish school gardens, recommend farms for farm field trips, utilize the Family and Consumer Science portion of Extension to offer local food cooking classes and demonstrations, for example).

75 Cooperative Extension agents will increase their knowledge of the Farm to School market (the market potential and market requirements) and the accompanying educational components. Project teams that include farmers, School Food Service Directors (SFSDs), state sustainable agriculture coordinators, and representatives from Departments of Agriculture are collaborating to design and implement the regional Cooperative Extension Farm to School Conference. SSAWG and the National Farm to School Network will provide their expertise through consultation. At the end of the conference, participants will understand school market requirements (liability insurance, GAP certification, distribution and other infrastructure needs, for example) and will be able to determine the potential for a given market based on the school population (size and demographics). Workshop trainers will provide information to familiarize Extension agents with the educational components of Farm to School and be able to provide this information to farmers, teachers, parents, and other community members. Outreach efforts for the trainings will uncover community resources and current Farm to School programs.

Extension agents will have access to pertinent and useful information through the training materials created by project teams. Conference notebook materials will be gathered from throughout the country to provide the best and most current information on Farm to School: best practices and lessons learned, case studies, market requirements. Extension agents will increase their knowledge of available Farm to School resources, gain a deeper understanding of the growth of the Farm to School movement, and better understand the barriers and challenges of the Farm to School market. These resources will be available in print to Extension agents attending the conference (75). Extension agents and other ag professionals unable to attend these trainings will be able to access them online (500).

Extension will be a Farm to School resource to farmers in their area. Whether for farmers in rural, tobacco-dependent and development-pressured areas or for farmers simply seeking market diversification, the farm to school market can be a key risk management strategy. Rural areas often lack sufficient markets (especially if the area was heavily dependent upon tobacco and are now under heavy development pressure) but school systems exist in every county that have the potential to provide a steady market for farmers. Moreover, farmers that learn to work with school systems can also apply that knowledge to expand their market potential to work with other institutional markets (i.e., colleges/universities and hospitals).

Accomplishments/Milestones

A conference call was held January 5, 2011 with 11 of the 15 committee members to discuss project plans scheduled for 2011. This call, along with a conference call on March 2, determined the schedule of events for the rest of the 2011 activities.

The needs assessment conducted in 2010 formed the basis for conference workshop content and the resource notebook. For reference, of the estimated 750 extension agents in the targeted NC, SC, and GA regions, 229 filled out the needs assessment survey (31%). The needs assessment identified a high interest among extension agents in increasing their participation in Farm to School programs, as well as the key areas where extension saw barriers to their involvement. Therefore, the conference was designed to address extension agents’ enthusiasm for, and perceived barriers to, increasing their involvement in area Farm to School programs.

Outreach for the Cooperative Extension Farm to School Conference began January 18th with the dissemination of a “Save the Date” email for the conference. The email was distributed to all Extension professionals in NC, SC, and GA through Cooperative Extension. The email targeted the 229 people who participated in the 2010 needs assessment survey, though the conference attendee limit was set to 100 registrants. A second email was sent through the same Extension channels to announce the opening of registration in May. Registration information was posted on ASAP’s Growing Minds website http://growing-minds.org/ and via the Extension email channels. On August 23 (two days before the conference) a press release titled Regional Cooperative Extension Agents to Learn Farm to School in Asheville was issued to promote the importance of the event to the public and other stakeholders.

The Cooperative Extension Farm to School Conference was held August 25, 2011 at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College’s Enka Campus in the Haynes Conference Center (Candler, NC). A total of 102 extension agents attended the event–44 from North Carolina, 29 from Georgia, 23 from South Carolina, and 6 from Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida. Three sessions including 12 workshops were held with topics covering: Connecting with Curriculum; How School Nutrition Programs Work; Farm to School Field Trips; Evaluation and Documentation; Case Study; Cross-Program Collaboration; School Gardens; Farm to School Cooking; How School Nutrition Programs Work; and Models for Local Food Procurement. Attendees received a notebook with educational materials to complement the information presented in the workshops. The 136 page document is attached to this report.

At the closing of the conference, attendees gathered by state to make a dissemination plan and to discuss what they learned. Each state reported back their findings.

Attendees of the conference were given a survey to evaluate the content and presentation of information in the workshops. A total of 60 evaluations were completed with very positive results overall. Across all workshops using a scale of 1-5 (1 being a low rating and 5 being a high rating) participants said that “Workshop content provided useful information” (4.3); “Speakers were prepared and knowledgeable” (4.6); and “Materials provided by the conference will be useful” (4.3). Similarly, when asked to rate the conference as a whole, attendees rated as follows: “Overall effectiveness of the conference” (4.6); “Overall value of the conference” (4.6); “Conference facilities” (4.6). Lastly, 90% of respondents said they were somewhat or much more prepared to work towards implementing Farm to School programming at their job as a result of this conference.

• Conference resource notebook
• Conference workshop descriptions
• Conference press
• Conference evaluation summary
• Needs assessment survey summary

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

The evaluation survey from the conference asked Extension agents to define their role in the implementation of the Farm to School program using what they had learned from the conference. Responses are listed, followed in parenthesis by the percentage of respondents who chose each option: Local food coordination (28%), school garden/community garden program (47%), farm field trips (35%), cooking/tastings with local food in schools (45%), procurement for schools (17%), market opportunities for farmers (30%), training and technical assistance for farmers (23%), training and technical assistance for schools (30%), economic resource development (13%), and other fill in responses including promoting the NC10% campaign, teaching, collaborating, and advocating (8%).

The Cooperative Extension Farm to School Conference provided 102 Extension agents with a notebook and CD of resource materials to complement workshop session topics. These resources included tips and checklists for managing farm field trips, integrating school gardens, curriculum connections for K-12 teachers, managing food costs, pricing resources, Farm to School brochures, school lunch procurement best practices for extension agents, distributor perspectives on supplying food to schools, and more. Conference attendees found the variety of the notebook materials to be informative and useful. Recipients of the notebooks have this to say of the materials: “I appreciate the notebook and CD. Great info! Thanks,” “Great notebook!,” “Notebook and CD very helpful,” “The notebook and disc. I need to go back and absorb all the information,” “I have more information and resources to enable me to take additional steps in networking with the schools and farmers.”

One month after the Cooperative Extension Farm to School Conference, an attendee from Georgia called to say that she has had three different people contact her about Farm to School. One was a program development coordinator wondering how to help Extension 4-H Nutrition programming highlight Farm to School. Another caller was looking for general information about Farm to School. The last caller was another conference attendee who wanted to collaborate on a Farm to School winter curriculum for their program areas. The Georgia agent expressed that she felt more prepared to address these questions because of her training at the conference. Several other GA Cooperative Extension agents (14) formed a committee that planned a Farm to School information session at the annual Extension Winter Conference in January 2012. Other attendees reported initiating dialogue with local schools to build gardens, conducting cooking demonstrations with kids, and developing relationships with Foodservice distributors. ASAP will conduct a follow up survey this Spring (2012) with attendees of the conference to find out more about how agents are implementing their new knowledge and skills in farm to school. We will know more about how agents are serving as farm to school resources in their areas once these survey results have been compiled.

The post conference evaluation of the Cooperative Extension Farm to School conference shows that attending extension agents increased their knowledge of the Farm to School market as well as their understanding of the educational components of the program. Using the five point scale where 1 is low and 5 is high, attendees rated the overall effectiveness of the conference 4.58, and the overall value 4.55. Individual attendees further noted that the “Workshops were great. Having all the “players” in the Farm 2 School arena was great because it helped me to understand the whole picture,” and “All workshops were extremely helpful as well as hearing from peers what they were doing in their communities. The conference sparked lots of ideas to brainstorm.” One attendee even remarked, “The variety of classes related to Farm to School was most helpful (case studies, evaluations, cooking, etc.)” Again, we will know even more about extension agent knowledge outcomes after the Spring 2012 follow-up survey.

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