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October is National Farm to School Month. If your team is planning a harvest-themed taste test or a local farmer spotlight in the cafeteria, that’s a great start. But it’s worth asking whether a month of activities is actually helping your program buy more local food, or just checking a seasonal box. USDA’s own data shows that most programs have room to turn October enthusiasm into something that lasts all year. A few schools we’ve featured through Cafeteria Confessions show what that can look like.
Where Programs Stand Today
USDA’s most recent Farm to School Census covers the 2022–2023 school year. It looked at school food authorities (SFAs), the districts and schools that run school meal programs. It found that 57.2% of SFAs, about 10,509 nationwide, served local foods at some point in their school lunch program. About half also served local foods at breakfast or in other meal programs. Together, these SFAs spent an estimated $1.8 billion on local food, or about 16% of their total food spending.
The education side is less consistent. About 29% of SFAs taught students about careers in agriculture, and about 17% offered farm field trips or taste tests. Only 14.7% of SFAs, about 2,698 sites, had a school garden. In short, more schools are taking part every year, but for many, “farm to school” still means one activity in the fall rather than a year-round relationship with local farms.
What Year-Round Looks Like: Three Schools Featured by Cafeteria Confessions
We’ve profiled these three schools on the Cafeteria Confessions podcast and in our Cafeteria Confessions Extra Servings articles. All three have school gardens, and each one treats farm to school as part of its everyday work rather than a once-a-year theme. Each school’s approach is different, which shows there’s more than one way to get there.
Academy for Global Citizenship (Chicago, IL). AGC runs its own meal program on a six-acre campus that includes a two-acre farm and six teaching kitchens. Its menu is 75% plant-based, and food from the school garden goes straight into the cafeteria. Students grow food, help prepare it, and share feedback on what’s served. As Culinary Director Chef Stacey told us, “When they grow a radish in the garden and then taste it on their plate, that connection changes everything.” Listen to the AGC episode.
SEED School of Miami (Miami, FL). SEED is Florida’s only public boarding school. What began as a plan to plant flowers in an empty courtyard grew into a small farm and a full high school course in gardening, taught by Andi Potamkin in partnership with Little River Cooperative. Students grow everything from papayas to greens and cook what they harvest. SEED is now working toward an on-site kitchen that cooks meals from scratch. It’s a good reminder that a garden can be the first step toward bigger changes in your meal program. Listen to the SEED Miami episode.
Bridge Boston Charter School (Roxbury, MA). Bridge Boston shows how a small city school can buy local food through strong partnerships. Gaining Ground Farm in Concord delivers fresh organic produce every week from June through November, and Food Service Director Keverne Glasgow’s team cooks it into school meals from scratch. The school also has eight raised garden beds, built with Green City Growers, and a lesson plan that covers soil, pollination, and composting. Lettuce and herbs from the garden are used in student taste tests. Bridge Boston is also part of the Metro North Buyers Group, a group of 20 schools that share advice on vendors, costs, and grants. Read the full Bridge Boston story in Cafeteria Confessions Extra Servings.
A Checklist for Building a Lasting Program
- Pick one food to focus on: Choose something that grows well in your area, like apples, greens, or dairy. Then make a plan to buy more of it locally over the next year, whether that means calling a nearby farm or adding it to your next bid.
- Run a taste test with a local food: Use it to collect real student feedback. A simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down count works well and gives you real numbers to share with your school board. AGC and Bridge Boston both let student feedback guide their menus, and students notice.
- Find a partner: A local farm, a garden nonprofit, or a group of nearby schools can take on a lot of the work. Gaining Ground, Green City Growers, and Little River Cooperative play this role for the schools above.
- Share your story: Ask your communications team to feature your Farm to School Month activities. A local farmer profile, a student quote, or a photo from the cafeteria makes an easy, positive story for a district newsletter or school board update.
- Join the USDA Farm to School Census: If your program has never taken part, start tracking what you already do this month so you’re ready when the next census comes around.
- Watch for grant funding: The USDA Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant helps schools build lasting programs, like school gardens and local buying relationships. Keep an eye out for the next funding announcement.
- Keep records with dates: Write down what you do and when. These records help during state reviews and make future grant applications stronger.
Farm to School Month is a great way to build excitement with students and your community. But the programs that get the most out of it treat October as a starting point, not the whole plan. AGC, SEED Miami, and Bridge Boston didn’t build their gardens and farm partnerships in a month. They started small and kept going. Next year, the difference between a program with a garden and a reliable local farm partner and one that runs the same taste test every October often comes down to one thing: whether someone wrote down a plan this month.
Want to hear how these schools got started? Listen to the AGC and SEED Miami episodes on Cafeteria Confessions, available wherever you get your podcasts, and read Bridge Boston’s story in Cafeteria Confessions Extra Servings. And if you’d like help turning a Farm to School Month activity into a year-round plan for buying local food, our team works with school nutrition programs all year long.