Many cafeterias around the United States are working to provide students with healthy, sustainable meal options. To do this, colleges and universities are changing the way that they purchase and prepare food in their cafeterias, and many of them are beginning to source food locally. Universities can play a big role in their local and...Read More

A local school garden project is providing not only fresh produce, but also a number of learning opportunities for the students. Students at Beckley-Stratton Middle School have helped grow the seeds, plant the vegetables and beautify the spaces where three gardens are located at the school. The first garden, located behind Beckley Elementary School, was...Read More

When most of us think of “hospital food,” we think meatloaf and Jell-O — basically bland, tasteless, and not particularly healthy. Traditionally, the hospital was someplace where you had to eat, not a place where you would choose to eat. And the cafeteria was mainly a place for time-challenged staff and distracted guests to eat...Read More

This document serves as an overview of four Vermont food hubs’ efforts responding to an institutional demand for locally grown products. Farm-to-School programs have progressively expanded across the state of Vermont, thus stimulating a widespread increase in both local food supply and effective distribution. With a focus on food hubs to develop more sustainable Farm-to-School...Read More

Protocols for measuring the outcomes and impacts of community gardens and urban farms This Toolkit is designed to help you measure and track the activities and outputs in your farm and garden according to five categories: Food Production Data, Environmental Data, Social Data, Health Data, and Economic Data. Each of these sections contains specific methods...Read More

Farm to Institution New England (FINE) assembled a team of experienced “supply chain facilitators” in 2013 and 2014 to conduct research on FSMC operations and practices. They interviewed 35 current and former officials of FSMC and other food system leaders, and compiled regional and cross-sector information about the food purchasing policies and procedures of the...Read More

Serving locally grown food is a big trend in school cafeterias, but it can seem out-of-reach for some food-service programs, particularly those in small, rural schools. To ease the path for those schools, and to encourage innovations that others can adopt, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm to School program awards planning and implementation grants...Read More

This comprehensive booklet from our colleagues at the Real Food Challenge in the US provides a practical step by step guide to plan and implement an a campus food garden. Author Louisa Denison, a student at Harvard University designed this resource with students in mind. Whether you are at the design stage or at the...Read More

Farm to institution programs are listed as one of the top 10 strategies to combat chronic disease and obesity. This document provides guidance for program managers, policy makers, and others on how to select strategies to increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables. It offers the most relevant information on each type of strategy. The...Read More

Report assessing the effectiveness of Wisconsin Farm to School (F2S) programs in increasing students’ fruit and vegetable (FV) intake. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior Andrea B. Bontrager Yoder, PhD, MM; Janice L. Liebhart, MS; Daniel J. McCarty, PhD; Amy Meinen, MPH, RD; Dale Schoeller, PhD; Camilla Vargas, MS; Tara LaRowe, PhD, RD June 18,...Read More