Farm to school encourages healthy lifestyles in children and helps support local economies. The Wisconsin Farm to School Toolkits for school nutrition directors and producers can help you create a successful farm to school program in your community. [...more]

For over 20 years, the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, or CIAS, has been a leader in sustainable agriculture research and outreach at UW-Madison. We’ve been working on farm to school since 2002. Our current efforts include: [...more]

CIAS houses the Great Lakes Region Farm to School Program Network, one of eight regional lead agencies of the National Farm to School Program. Its mission is to institutionalize and catalyze farm to school programs in order to provide viable models for improving the economic sustainability of family-scale farmers and supporting child nutrition efforts. [...more]

The last decade has seen rapid growth in the number of farm-to-school initiatives in the United States. Despite the proliferation of farm-to-school programs and the significant energy and resources that have gone into their implementation, there have been few systematic assessments of these initiatives. We use the experience of the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch [...] [...more]

Printer-friendly version (PDF) How do you get kids to eat their vegetables? Americans are bombarded with news about childhood obesity and the importance of replacing junk food with healthier fare. But this is no easy task when children are enticed with empty calories by advertisers, restaurants and even schools. When you look at the big picture, [...] [...more]

Seventh graders at Sherman Middle School are learning healthy cooking from the pros. Two Mondays each month, L’Etoile chefs Tory Miller and Eva Ringstrom teach the students how to cook with fresh produce. Their class not only extolls healthy eating, but also gives the students experience preparing fresh produce. This class is part of Wisconsin [...] [...more]

The bounty of our spring and summer gardens is still a few months away, yet hundreds of Madison school children and their families will enjoy Wisconsin fruit and vegetables in the middle of winter during three upcoming winter harvest dinners. As part of the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch farm-to-school initiative, students and their families from Chavez, Shorewood [...] [...more]

What do students at Shorewood Hills, Lincoln, and Chavez Elementary Schools have in common? All 1,400 of them, along with school staff and parents, will experience the bounty of local agriculture this month in school-wide Harvest Festivals. As pilot schools involved with the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch farm-to-school project, each school will host Harvest Festival meals featuring [...] [...more]

If colleges and universities purchased five to ten percent of their food directly from local farms, imagine the extra income that could end up in Wisconsin farmers’ pockets. The University of Wisconsin-Madison alone spends nearly $10 million each year on food for its dining services. The good news is that many colleges and universities in Wisconsin [...] [...more]

Now more than ever, farmers are looking for new markets and customers who will pay a fair price for their products. Dining services at four colleges in Wisconsin are buying directly from farmers and paying premium prices for a wide variety of meats, vegetables, and fruit. Northland College, Beloit College, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and the [...] [...more]