Good news for school food: Oregonian endorses new farm-to-school and school garden bill
Photo by Bryan Wolf
Deborah Kane implores us to be patient - that better food really is coming to our children's lunchrooms - in her fall Edible Portland story, Back to School: Voting with Your Lunch Money.
It looks as though change really is afoot with Cory Schreiber making himself at home as the new Farm to School Food Coordinator at the Oregon Department of Agriculture. And now, a bill that is going in front of the Oregon Legislature during the 2008 session would create a complimentary farm-to-school and school garden program at the Oregon Department of Education so that Cory has a "partner in crime."
If passed, we’ll be the first state in the nation to secure such specific focus on farm-to-school and school gardens within state government.
On January 22, The Oregonian endorsed this bill. Read on for the editorial.
For more information on the bill, click below.
For more information about Ecotrust's involvement in the bill, click here.
THE OREGONIAN
Multiplication tables
Oregon has farms and food processors aplenty, but schools need help to connect them to kids' lunches
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Former Wildwood chef Cory Schreiber recently revisited one of his favorite lunch spots, a place he returned to again and again when he was growing up.
It wasn't entirely his choice. But he's nostalgic about it, anyway: Chapman School.
Back then, he loved the sloppy Joes and rolls right out of the oven. "I still remember that smell distinctly," Schreiber says, meaning it as a compliment. On his most recent visit, though, he was fixated on the cherry cobbler, which was so good he asked for seconds.
And that's good news for Oregon. Believe it or not, cherry cobbler figures as a potential headliner in a food revolution rumbling in Portland that soon could be sweeping the state. Parents want their kids to eat more fresh produce, schools want to serve it, and Oregon farmers are eager to sell it. In theory, it shouldn't be more expensive to provide locally grown and processed foods in schools, but the reality is that many school districts are too tiny to do their own food R&D.
Enter Schreiber. Recently, the state Department of Agriculture hired the star chef to forge new connections between Oregon farms and Oregon schools. That will often involve Oregon food processors, too, as in the case of the cobbler. Kids who spurn fresh fruit, no matter where it's grown, will eat it lightly processed in the form of dessert.
While the state Department of Agriculture has expertise in farms and food processing, Schreiber will need a counterpart with expertise in school nutrition to meet him halfway. That's why the farm-to-school coalition will be in Salem this week, seeking $95,000 for a matching position -- think salt and pepper -- in the state Department of Education.
Could the department rejigger its existing budget, rather than ask for a new appropriation? Maybe not, since school nutrition is an afterthought within the overall education budget. But the coalition should certainly be prepared to answer that question.
Schreiber's star power and moxie will be wasted unless there is someone who can help him navigate the education bureaucracy and cut through red tape. Many of Oregon's small school districts are eager to join the food revolution, too, but they need help to replicate Portland's growing success in serving Oregon products.
Last month, cherries were the featured "harvest of the month" in the Portland Public Schools. This month, it's pears. Next up, things get a little scary. It will be beets. Many challenges remain, but if the state devotes two food wizards to tackle them together, the farm-to-school revolution will soon be better described in Oregon as farm-to-mouth.
