Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology Calendar

Join us for Dr. Thompson's talk!
Title: Is Farm to School a Realistic Strategy for Promoting Sustainable Food Systems?

Abstract:
Farm to School (F2S) initiatives have exploded across the United States in recent years. As of 2015, F2S activities are reaching over 23.6 million children, in 42,000 schools, across all 50 states (USDA 2015). These programs, which range from bringing locally-grown foods into school lunch rooms for taste tests or meals, to building edible school gardens and expanding food-based lessons across the curriculum, are highly heterogeneous in their intent and their impact. Nevertheless, F2S programs are broadly promoted as a “win-win-win” for school children, for farmers, and for communities, and as an exemplar for a sustainable food system. In this presentation, I draw upon three years of ethnographic work with F2S efforts in Georgia, a leader in the F2S movement, to examine these efforts through a sustainability lens—to identify successes, areas where the promise of F2S is falling short, and opportunities for truly investing in F2S as a strategy for building a more sustainable food system.