DECORAH, Iowa —Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative has received a $95,600 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to connect school cafeterias with local farmers through its Farm to School program.
It was one of 71 projects throughout the country that received a grant.
Teresa Wiemerslage, Extension Regional Program Coordinator and project director for the Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative grant, said the timing of the grant is perfect.
"The USDA Farm to School funds will support a strong collaboration and will be readily leveraged with public and private funds," Wiemerslage said. "With technical assistance funds from a USDA Rural Business Enterprise Grant grant, a food aggregation hub has been launched to be able to distribute larger quantities of food needed by schools, but we need short-term funds to assist with logistics and delivery costs.''
The Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative and its partners will build on the momentum of five years of successful farm to school programs in Allamakee, Chickasaw, Clayton, Fayette, Howard and Winneshiek counties.
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The Food and Fitness Initiative aims to collaborate with farmers to scale€up production and investment in aggregation infrastructure to meet school needs. It will with four rural school districts to expand their farm to school programming and to increase their local food purchases by 200 percent.
Decorah, Waukon, Turkey Valley and Postville school districts are part of a project where Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness assisted the schools in developing regional seasonal cycle menus as part of another grant.
"The school food service directors asked us for help in meeting the new national nutrition requirements that came out two years ago," Wiemerslage said. "We saw it as an opportunity to create a menu that would be very friendly to Iowa-grown food."
Menus that meet all the nutrition requirements were set up on a five-week cycle with similar food foods served every five weeks. There are three variations of the cycle based on what vegetables are in season. Early fall focuses on readily available fruits and vegetables. Winter shifts to soups and other dishes that use root vegetables. Spring uses different food options and takes into account meatless meals because of Lent.
As a part of the grant a coordinator at the food hub will help partner districts implement strategies that will increase the amount of regionally grown foods in the meals of more than 4,000 rural students. The initiative will work with each partnering district to develop a school wellness action plan, which includes a plan of work for farm to school.
Wiemerslage said northeast Iowa is well-known for its local food system work.
"However, we are at a tipping point," she said. "We will either make significant progress through a food hub and expanded production, or our local farm to school work will stall at current levels. We will either expand food processing and storage, or we will not increase local food served in schools and other institutions."
USDA Farm to School grants help schools respond to the growing demand for locally sourced foods and increase market opportunities for producers and food businesses, including food processors, manufacturers and distributors. Grants also will be used to support agriculture and nutrition education efforts such as school gardens, field trips to local farms and cooking classes.
