Farm-to-school program growing in Alaska
February 15, 2011
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Feb. 13, 2011
When Johanna Herron was choosing a project for her graduate work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks she wanted to study Alaska’s Farm to School program but there wasn’t one. Now the program has been created in the Division of Agriculture and Herron is its coordinator.
Raised in Minnesota and Colorado, Herron had no agriculture background till she came to Alaska in 2000. Her husband Jeff, a chef, got her interested in gardening and cooking and today she is consumed with food and health. She earned a B.S. in anthropology at UAF and then worked for the Center for Alaska Native Health Research. After her two children were born she started working on a master’s degree in community nutrition. It was becoming a mother that really got her passionate about what children are eating.
Her thesis project focuses on Alaska foods: “anything fished, hunted, harvested or grown in Alaska,” Herron explained. She conducted a statewide assessment of school food service professionals perspectives about their interest in, challenges of, and resources needed for incorporating more Alaskan foods in the school meal programs. “Interest is really high,” Herron said. Her background made her the perfect match to help the state implement the Farm to School program. A summit was held in January to receive the stakeholders’ input and now Herron is writing a strategic plan.
The idea is simple: “to increase the use of Alaska foods in school meals,” but the delivery may be complicated. “I know Farm to School is not one-size-fits-all,” she said. “We will have to tailor it to each community.” Herron is happy to be aligned with the National Farm to School Network, which has been doing this kind of work for 10 years.
The group’s mission is to connect schools and local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing agriculture, health and nutrition education opportunities and supporting local and regional farmers. In her new job Herron wants to increase communications between producers and food service professionals, encourage regulatory agencies’ policies and procedures for using local foods and school garden crops, promote curriculum for nutrition education and Agriculture in the Classroom activities.
Herron knows she can’t do all this alone so she plans to team up with youth leaders and other community organizations, who she says are key to success. For her, the program is more than just plopping local lettuce on a hamburger. She hopes that children will begin to understand better how food affects their bodies and the environment. “So many people don’t know how to cook or where food comes from,” Herron said. “It’s tragic. We have this unique situation where some kids are malnourished due to a lack of food and others due to too much food of low nutritional quality.”
Reaching young people through the schools is a natural place to start, she said. “Children get 19 to 50 percent of their food at school, sometimes more. It’s a nice area to target change.” She has already toured an elementary, middle and high school to observe the lunchtime practices and visited the school district’s central kitchen, where she was delighted to find that the bread is made on site. Getting locally grown food into the schools will require some preparation and legwork, Herron said. “The schools are facing a lot of challenges and it varies depending on the region.”
Some things in common are that schools will require a reliable supply of local products that are reasonably priced and must have adequate facilities and staff to handle the food. She is encouraged when she hears about school districts that are already using Alaska foods, such as Dillingham where the community provides and processes fish for the schoolchildren’s meals. “I like to hear about things like that,” Herron said. In feeding her own family, Herron involves everyone in gardening and wild berry picking. She loves growing potatoes and carrots. “The root vegetables are a favorite in our house,” she said.
Her personal food philosophy is one she borrowed from author and food expert Michael Pollan: “Don’t eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
This column is provided as a service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. Nancy Tarnai is the school and station’s public information officer. She can be reached at ntarnai@alaska.edu. Contact info: Johanna Herron State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Agriculture 1648 S. Cushman, #201 374-3714 Johanna.herron@alaska.gov