A fresh approach to school lunch

                                         
It wasn’t so long ago that the county’s middle and high schools had vending machines dispensing sodas and snacks filled with saturated fats to their students — but all that has changed.
Now, vending machines available to students are stocked with juices and water.
“The only vending machines that spit out snacks are in staff areas,” said Debbie Brown, assistant superintendent for the Greene County School Division. She suggested that those machines be stocked with “such things as SunChips and granola bars.”
Moreover, Greene’s school system is going all out to see that the produce it serves its students is as fresh as it can be.
Last week the school division started serving locally grown produce to students via the Virginia Farm to School Program, developed by the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs.
According to VDACS, Virginia schools currently spend more than $6 million annually on fresh produce. The state’s Farm-to-School Program is opening the doors for more of those dollars to stay within the state by seeking to increase the volume of locally grown products served in school cafeterias.
Officially recognized Nov. 9 through 13, the Virginia Farm-to-School Program “is an effort to increase the amount of fresh and nutritious Virginia-grown products offered in schools,” said Carol Haas, director of the Greene County School Nutritional Food Program.
“We’re easing into getting produce from local farmers,“ Haas said. “Last week it was cauliflower and local apples … lettuce … (and) … radishes. We would like to incorporate as many local items as possible into the school system’s nutrition program.”
But the Farm-to-School Program is not just about promoting better nutrition in schools. It’s also about promoting opportunities for schools and local farmers to work together.
During Farm-to-Table Week, “we began work with Local Food Hub in Charlottesville,” Haas   said. “That company has a refrigerated truck and a licensed warehouse in Ivy. Food that comes from Local Food Hub is vine-ripened and tree-ripened and picked within hours of delivery.”
And that’s good news for local farmers.
According to the nonprofit organization’s Web site (localfoodhub.org) Local Food Hub is an informational hub that moves product grown in the Thomas Jefferson Planning District through local food distributors, such as schools, senior centers, restaurants and caterers.
Its object is to enable the dollar to flow directly back into the hands of the farmer, says Local Food Hub Director of Operations and Distribution Alan Moore.
Moore says that the nonprofit is currently working with “about 30 small farmers all within about a 40 mile radius of Charlottesville; in Greene, Albemarle, Fluvanna, Louisa and Nelson counties and the City of Charlottes-ville.”
And it’s looking for more: the organization that was begun earlier this year is using this winter as a planning period, to add both small and large farmers to its list of partner producers and coordinate their efforts with those of buyers.
The bottom line is this:  Local Food Hub wants local farmers to sign on — even if they are new to the industry. The group has developed an educational farm in Louisa County to teach locals about farming.
“We look at the program as an economic development tool as much as anything else,” said Moore,  “We want to make sure that food that’s grown in this area stays in this area, and to be able to offer the consistent supply and quality that businesses require.“
The initiative is not new to this area, or even to the commonwealth: the Obama administration hopes to improve rural economies while promoting healthful eating.
“What we’ve got to do is change how we think about … getting local farmers connected to school districts because that would benefit the farmers delivering fresh produce, President Barack Obama told a health care forum recently.
Local Food Hub is more than willing to do its part: Moore says that if the school system gave Local Food Hub a contract, “it could be filled.“
For more information about Local Food Hub visit localfoodhub.org or call (434) 244-3276.