*Originally Posted 08/18/15
CHILDREN AT RISK Senior Staff Attorney Jamey Caruthers discusses HB3290.
All around the country, the presence of locally-sourced and locally-produced foods have increased substantially at restaurants, farmers markets and grocery stores alike. We have become increasingly aware of the health, environmental, and economic benefits of sourcing our food from nearby. However, these trends have not quite caught on in our state’s schools, although it is not due to a lack of interest. This past legislative session, Representative Eddie Rodriguez proposed a bill (HB 3290) that would have awarded $5 million in grants to Texas school districts to purchase fresh, unprocessed foods from local farms to serve in the school meals; start a school garden; provide educational programs and samples of healthy foods to students; organize field trips to local farms; and other similar initiatives. Unfortunately, this bill did not pass.
In 2009 a bill was passed (SB 1027) that established the Interagency Farm to School Task Force. They were charged with developing and implementing a plan to facilitate the availability of locally grown food products in our schools, and to help districts introduce students to local food and agriculture through garden-based learning; connecting with local farmers; and classroom lessons focused on nutrition and agricultural education. However, the bill that did not pass this year would have provided the funding necessary for Texas school districts to actually implement some of the Task Force’s findings. There are some federal and private funding opportunities that a few districts in our state are taking advantage of, but obviously that is not enough.
Texas has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the country, along with a high prevalence of food deserts. These two things are very interrelated: diets full of cheap, processed, nutritionally-empty junk foods lead to obesity and other diet-related diseases, at increasingly young ages. Many children today have difficulties recognizing some of the most basic fruits and vegetables because they have never tried them, they have never seen their parents eat them, they don’t know how to prepare them, and they don’t know about how their diets affect their health. Habits are formed at an early age, and many of the Farm to School programs that have been implemented involve doing taste tests and cooking demonstrations with these local fruits and vegetables, field trips to local farms, building school gardens in which students grow and cultivate their own healthy food, and nutrition classes that incorporate the farm-fresh food into the curriculum. When the kids are engaged like they are in these types of programs and start building preferences for these healthy foods, they inevitably go home and tell their parents about what they have learned, and they ask for more of these nutritious items outside of the school setting. The parents then become more informed about healthy food and how it affects their family’s well being and they start making positive changes as well. These initiatives really have the potential to improve the health of the community at large.
Agriculture is a huge part of our state’s economy, but at present, smaller family farms are struggling or disappearing. We have about 7 million children in our state – imagine the positive financial impact that could have if even a small portion of our school districts started souring food from Texas farms. Upstream Public Health conducted a study that found that each dollar invested in Farm to School activities stimulated an additional $2.16 of local economic activity. Additionally, we can greatly reduce our environmental footprint by sourcing food from nearby than by bringing it in from halfway across the country or even the world.
The logistics may seem complicated and there are questions about whether or not there is enough food to meet the demand or whether it will be too expensive to. The proposed legislation was simply meant to get the momentum going and for districts to figure out what works best for them in their particular area with their particular population. Other states have done it and we can too. This has the potential to have a huge positive impact on some our state’s most pressing issues.