The Choose Iowa Local Food for Schools program is expanding its efforts to connect Iowa schools with locally produced food after a successful pilot program last year.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said the program was piloted last year before being made permanent through the Iowa Farm Act. The program provides grants to schools that can be used to purchase food produced locally.
Naig said school nutrition directors already have the difficult task of providing safe and nutritious meals while working within their budgets. The grants are designed to give schools an incentive to make more of those purchases from Iowa producers.
This year, grants were awarded to 125 public and private schools across the state. Naig said the funding works out to roughly $1,600 per school, with recipients required to provide a one-to-one match. That gives each participating school about $3,200 in purchasing power for locally produced food.
The program can create opportunities for a variety of Iowa agricultural products. Naig pointed to beef and pork purchased directly from farms, along with products including apples, yogurt and cheese. Produce can present additional challenges because the school calendar does not always line up with peak production.
While the grants provide an incentive to buy locally, Naig said last year’s pilot also identified some logistical challenges. School nutrition directors are accustomed to working with distributors, and sourcing products individually from several different farms can create additional work.
To address that challenge, the program is working with food hubs across Iowa. Those hubs can source products from Choose Iowa members and serve in a role similar to the distributors schools already use.
Naig said the pilot also showed there was sometimes a disconnect between buyers and sellers. Some Iowa farmers did not know schools were looking for certain products or quantities, while schools were not always aware those products were being produced locally.
By bringing those two sides together, the program can help establish relationships that continue beyond an initial purchase. The goal is to get more Iowa-grown food into school cafeterias while creating another potential market for Iowa farmers.
