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FARM TO SCHOOL PROGRAMS IN PUBLIC K-12
SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES: PERSPECTIVES OF
FARMERS, FOOD SERVICE PROFESSIONALS, AND FOOD
DISTRIBUTORS

presented by

BETTY TOMOKO IZUMI

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FARM TO SCHOOL PROGRAMS IN PUBLIC K-12 SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED
STATES: PERSPECTIVES OF FARMERS, FOOD SERVICE PROFESSIONALS,
AND FOOD DISTRIBUTORS
By

Betty Tomoko Izumi

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies

2008

ABSTRACT
FARM TO SCHOOL PROGRAMS IN PUBLIC K-12 SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED
STATES: PERSPECTIVES OF FARMERS, FOOD SERVICE PROFESSIONALS,
AND FOOD DISTRIBUTORS
By
Betty Tomoko Izumi
The research in this dissertation was undertaken to explore the potential of farm to
school programs in public K-12 schools in the United States to simultaneously improve
children’s diets and provide farmers with viable market opportunities. This research uses
a case study approach to examine why farmers, food service professionals, and food
distributors — three stakeholder groups that are critical to the institutionalization of local
school food procurement — participate in farm to school programs and how they
characterize the Opportunities and challenges of local school food procurement. The
phrase “farm to school program” is broadly used as a descriptor for national and local
efforts to link schools with local agriculture. The focus of this research is on efforts to
integrate locally grown food into seven school food programs in the Upper Midwest and
Northeast regions of the United States. Qualitative interviews were used as the primary
data collection strategy. Procurement records, menus, and other relevant documents also
were collected and examined in order to cross-check ﬁndings and enhance validity of the
results. Data were analyzed to identify common patterns across the cases.
The results of this research suggest that farmers, food service professionals, and

food distributors have complex reasons for their involvement in farm to school programs.
Their engagement can be rationalized as commercially motivated but they clearly went

beyond economic instrurnentalism as evidenced by non-economic values such as

community, localism, and health, which influenced their decisions to buy and sell locally
grown food. The theoretical concepts of marketness, instrumentalism, and embeddedness
help to explain the contradictory nature of their motivations. In addition, structural
constraints that limit the integration of locally groWn foods into the school food program
were identiﬁed. These are broadly deﬁned as lack of material resources, oppositional
school year and agriculture production cycles, and procurement regulations.

The results of this research illustrate the complexity of farm to school programs
and the need to assess their development, viability, and potential from the perspectives of
stakeholders who are intimately involved in the day-to-day realities of local school food

procurement.

Copyright by
BETTY TOMOKO IZUMI
2008

For

Caroline Tomomi

ACKNOLWEDGEMENTS

This dissertation would not have been possible without the insights of the
individuals who participated in this research and the support of many faculty and staff at
Michigan State University, friends, and family. My understanding of farm to school
programs beneﬁted tremendously from the farmers, food service professionals, and food
distributors who shared their experiences with me. I owe many thanks for their time and
patience throughout my research. My deepest appreciation also goes to Kristen Misiak,
Paul Yettaw, Marla Moss, Jayme Priest, Glenda Neff, Anupama Joshi, and Marion Kalb
for sharing their knowledge and for their willingness to answer my many, and sometimes
tedious, questions.

Over the past four years, I have had the good fortune to have worked with
committee members who were vested in my personal and professional development.
Frank Fear has been an unfailing supporter. His insights strengthened the theoretical
foundation of my interdisciplinary work. I am thankful for the support of Kimberly
Chung, who provided expertise in qualitative methods and helpful critique of my
research. Katherine Alaimo has been both a mentor and a friend. Her thoughtful
comments on my research and writing improved my work immensely. I am deeply
grateful for the committed and caring mentorship of Michael Hamm, my advisor and
committee chair who supported all of my research ideas and helped me focus on just one.
I am thankful for the countless number of hours he spent discussing the key ideas and

small details of my work.

vi

I am grateful for the assistance of the administrative and information technology
staff in the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies for
providing ongoing and last-minute support throughout my doctoral program. Thank you
also to Michigan State University librarian Leslie Behm for helping me to navigate and
troubleshoot EndNote at all hours of the day.

The entire C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems supported me
throughout my four years at Michigan State University. I am so thankﬁrl for their
friendship and encouragement. I am especially grateful to Anne Conwell whose
organizational skills I relied upon and to Colleen Matts, my sounding board and friend.

Many other friends contributed to this dissertation. Wynne Wright challenged me
to enter unfamiliar territory by introducing me to new ideas. Her door was always open
for me. Jennifer Wilkins supported my project from the beginning and helped me in more
ways than I can count. Together with her partner Graham Kerslick, She even hosted me in
their home. I am indebted to Joan Gussow who has been a long time mentor and ﬁiend.
She read my dissertation ﬁ'om beginning to end. Her humor, practical advice, and
encouragement helped me to push through to the end of this project. Kate Clancy helped
broaden my thinking and reminded me to keep the bigger picture in mind. Gail Feenstra,
Mamta Vardhan, Allison Loconto, Toni Liquori, Amy Paxton, Daniel Jaffee, and David
Conner all provided invaluable input on my work at various stages of my research and
writing and challenged me to sharpen my analysis. Jeff and Mary Jo Porter and Brian and
Susan Price received me into their homes with a warm welcome. Debra Eschmeyer, Joan
Tobin, and Noah Ullmann helped pull together my dissertation defense presentation.

Their creativity and willingness to help on short notice earns a big thank-you.

vii

I was fortunate to have received funding to support me in my doctoral program.
Thank you to The Graduate School at Michigan State University, North Central
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Graduate Student Grant Program,
Michigan State University Agricultural Experiment Station, and the CS. Mott Professor
of Sustainable Agriculture.

My parents are my role models and instilled in me a strong sense of social justice,
conviction, and ethic of care for all living things. My dad taught me how to care for a
garden and the value of community from the time I was very small. I am so thankful for
these early life lessons. My mom passed on to me a love for food and cooking. For as
long as I can remember, I worked side by side with her in the kitchen turning whatever
foods were in season into a meal. I am grateful to her for teaching me the skills and
nurturing my conﬁdence to be creative in the kitchen.

Finally, this dissertation would never have been completed without the support of
my husband, Geoff Koch. He read and edited as many drafts as I wrote and
enthusiastically took on all of our household chores when the going was the hardest.
Geoff and our daughter Caroline Tomomi together helped me juggle the work of
ﬁnishing my dissertation with my role as a new mom. I am so thankful for their inﬁnite

patience, humor, and encouragement.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................... xi

CHAPTER ONE: Introduction......................' ...................................... 1
Why study farm to school programs? .................................................................... 3
Overview of the dissertation .............................................................. 5
Emergence and development of farm to school programs in the United States... 6
Embeddedness, marketness, and instrumentalism: A theoretical framework for 13
studying farm to school programs .......................................................
Methods ...................................................................................... 19
Overview of the chapters .................................................................. 25

CHAPTER TWO: Perspectives of Farmers ............................................ 28
Introduction ................................................................................. 28
The hybrid nature of alternative agrifood networks .................................... 32
A short history of farm to school program development in the United States. . . 36
Methods ...................................................................................... 41
Results and discussion ..................................................................... 44
Conclusion .................................................................................. 59

CHAPTER THREE: Perspectives of School Food Service Professionals. . . . . 64

Introduction ................................................................................. 64
Methods ...................................................................................... 70
Results .............................................................. . ......................... 74
Discussion ................................................................................... 87
Limitations .................................................................................. 92
Implications for research and practice ................................................... 93
CHAPTER FOUR: Perspectives of Food Distributors ............................... 95
Introduction ................................................................................. 95
Embeddedness: A theoretical basis for farm to school programs .................... 99
Farm to school programs: A new mode of school food provisioning? .................. 102
Regionally-based food distributors: case studies ....................................... 109
Discussion ................................................................................... 123
Conclusion .................................................................................. 127
CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusions and Implications ...................................... 131
Balancing embeddedness, marketness, and instrumentalism ......................... 131
Structural constraints of school food procurement limit the integration of 134
locally grown foods into the cafeteria ...................................................
Implications ................................................................................. 1 3 7
Clarify the goals of farm to school programs .......................................... 138
Address school food budget constraints ................................................. 139

ix

Address school food budget constraints ................................................. 139

Recommendations for future research and practice .................................... 141
APPENDIX A: Sampling Frame. . . . . . . .. ................................................................. 146
APPENDIX B: Informed Consent Documents... ....................................... 148
APPENDIX C: Interview Guides ......................................................... 152
APPENDIX D: Code Dictionary ........................................................... 159
APPENDIX E: Data Displays .............................................................. 171
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................ 175

Table 2-1

Table 3-1

Table 3-2

Table 6-1

Table 6-2

Table 6-3

Table 6—4

Table 6-5

LIST OF TABLES

Summary of farmers’ participation in farm to school programs ..........

Selected sample of questions for food service professional interviews...

Selected farm to school program characteristics ............................
Sampling frame ..................................................................
Code dictionary ...................................................................
Conceptually clustered matrix: Motives of food service professionals...
Conceptually clustered matrix: Perspectives of food distributors. . . . . .

Conceptually clustered matrix: Motives and attitudes of farmers. . . . . .

xi

45

72

75

147

160

172

173

174

CHAPTER ONE:

INTRODUCTION

Now if every school had a lunch program that served its students only local
products that had been sustainably farmed, imagine what it would mean for
agriculture. Today, twenty percent of the population of the United States is
in school. If all these students were eating lunch together, consmning local,
organic food, agriculture would change overnight to meet the demand. Our
domestic food culture would change as well, as people again grew up
learning how to cook affordable, wholesome, and delicious food.
--Alice Waters (2004)

Farm to school programs ensure that local farms will ﬁnd reliable buyers for
their bounty. These programs help kids develop lifelong eating habits that
are the best defense against chronic illness. Good for the economy, good for
kids — Farm to School legislation causes people to ask, “Why haven’t we

been doing this all along?”
--Vermont State Senator Ginny Lyons (2008)

Farm to school programs, barely heard of a decade ago, are at the vanguard of
efforts to create an alternative agriculture and food system1 in the United States (Allen &
Guthman, 2006). Like farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture, fair trade, and
food box schemes, farm to school programs are among the various efforts underway to
remake the food and agriculture system through institutions that attempt to exist outside
of dominant commodity-driven networks (Hinrichs & Lyson, 2007; Wright &
Middendorf, 2007). Many of these alternative agrifood networks (AAF N) — also
referred to as “alternative agrifood initiatives,” (Allen, 1999) “alternative strategies,”
(Kirwan, 2004) and “short food supply chains” (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000) —
are often described and analyzed from a systemic perspective that emphasizes links and

relationships between producers and consumers (Allen, FitzSimmons, Goodman, &

 

' Hereafter, the agriculture and food system is referred to as “agrifood system.”

Warner, 2003261; Clancy, 1997; Goodman, 2003; Gussow, 2006; Hinrichs & Lyson,
2007; Kloppenburg, Hendrickson, & Stevenson, 1996; Lyson, 2004). By rebuilding
linkages between individuals along the supply chain, scholars have argued that AAFNs
hold the potential for movement towards a more sustainable food system. If people
viewed food as more than a commodity, the reasoning goes, they might make food
choices that could lead to the betterment of the agrifood system (Allen, FitzSimmons,
Goodman, & Warner, 2003). Gussow (2006:9) has succinctly stated that

“Consumers who were entirely isolated from the origins of their food could

not see how their demands — for fatty meats, for exotic foods, for out of

season produce — were threatening the agricultural resource base. If only

they could see what went into the production of their food — which might

happen. . .if food production were made more local — eaters might help save

farmers and the planet.”

Similarly, by reconnecting school food service with local agriculture, many
advocates hope that farm to school programs will not only improve children’s diets and
provide markets for farmers, but also will change the procurement practices of school
food service to reﬂect a more sustainable agrifood system based on notions of social
justice, environmental sustainability, and economic viability (Azurna & Fisher, 2001).

The phrase “farm to school” is broadly used as a descriptor for national and local
efforts to link schools with local agriculture. These efforts are highly diverse and can
include one-time events, such as conferences, harvest festivals, ﬁeld trips to farms, and
educational visits from farmers, or on-going programs, such as school gardens and
nutrition education, or even fundraisers that take advantage of locally grown products
like jams, apple cider, and dried cherries. However, the “cornerstone” of farm to school

programs in the United States (Allen & Guthman, 2006:413), and the focus of this

dissertation, are efforts to integrate locally grown produce into school food programs.

Why study farm to school programs?

Because of its potential to address increasingly poor dietary habits among children
and decreasing numbers of farms and farmers, the idea of linking school cafeterias with
local agriculture has garnered the support of diverse groups of people (Allen & Guthman,
2006). Among these are farmers, anti-hunger advocates, nutrition educators, food
distributors, and school food service professionals. As a result, farm to school programs in
the United States are proliferating. The National Farm to School Networkz, which provides
resources for starting and sustaining efforts to link farms with schools, estimates that there
are now more than 1,900 farm to school programs nationwide, up from 400 in 2005
(National Farm to School Network, n.d.). It is not clear how many of these programs are
integrating locally grown foods into their cafeterias or if their efforts are more modest (i.e.
single events, taste tests, harvest festival) because such details have not been collected and
are therefore not available. However, it is clear that the economic signiﬁcance of farm to
school programs are growing. For example, policy makers at both the national and local
levels have passed legislation encouraging schools to buy locally grown food for their food
programs. In 2002, the 1946 National School Lunch Act was amended, requiring the
Secretary of Agriculture to encourage institutions participating in federal meals programs
to purchase locally grown food to the maximum extent practicable (US. Department of
Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, 2004). Since then, many states have passed their
own bills to encourage school food programs to buy locally grown food, providing further

support for institutionalizing local school food procurement.

 

2 The National Farm to School Network is a collaborative effort between the Center for Food and Justice
and the Community Food Security Coalition that provides technical assistance and resources to farm to
school programs across the country. It was launched in 2007 with the purpose of institutionalizing farm to
school programs as sustainable models for "improving the economic viability of family-scale farmers and
supporting child nutrition efforts" (National Farm to School Network, n.d.).

Unlike other relatively well-studied AAFNs such as farmers’ markets, farm to
school programs are mostly unexamined in the academic literature. How-to manuals, short
case studies, and success stories — collected primarily for purposes of advocacy, pilot
evaluations, feasibility analyses, or grant ﬁmding reports — are abundant. However, much
of the data used to develop these resources have been informally gathered, not fully
described, and tend to only highlight the potential beneﬁts of local school food
procurement. Such uncritical endorsements obscure the complexity of farm to school
programs and raise questions about their potential to transform school food procurement
ﬁom a process based on price to one that reﬂects a more sustainable agrifood system. Why
do food service professionals buy locally grown food? Why do farmers sell their food to
schools? How do food distributors impact the goals of farm to school programs? How does
the regulatory, institutional, and political context of school food service inﬂuence efforts to
integrate locally grown food into the cafeteria? If farm to school programs are to become
viable opportunities for farmers and food service professionals, critical appraisal of their
potential is necessary. This dissertation was undertaken to address two speciﬁc questions:
What motivates farmers, food service professionals, and food distributors to participate in
farm to school programs? How do these stakeholder groups characterize the opportunities
and challenges to local school food procurement?

This dissertation has several aims. First, it brings the perspectives of farmers, food
service professionals, and food distributors to the discourse surrounding farm to school
programs. Since these three stakeholder groups are intimately involved in the details of
local school food procurement, their perspectives are important considerations in any effort

to institutionalize farm to school programs. Second, it introduces a theoretical framework

for understanding why farmers, food service professionals, and food distributors participate
in farm to school programs. Understanding their needs and motivations is crucial for
identifying the kind of support necessary to implement sustainable models of local school
food procurement. Finally, this dissertation contributes to the growing literature on AAFNS
by bringing forward an analysis of an alternative agrifood system initiative that is largely
shaped by its publicly funded context. The institutional, regulatory, and political context of
farm to school programs makes them substantially different ﬁom other AAFNS such as

farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture, and fair trade.

Overview of the dissertation

Drawing upon the AAF N literature, this research took an interdisciplinary approach
to studying farm to school programs. The nature of local school food procurement —
inﬂuenced by everything from state and federal policies to nutrition to market realities —
makes such an approach necessary. Farm to school programs will best ﬂourish through
application of theories and perspectives that cross disciplines. Given the diverse groups of
individuals who are involved in efforts to link school cafeterias with local agriculture, this
dissertation is organized into three manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
Together, the manuscripts speak to multiple audiences including nutrition educators, rural
planners, agricultural economists, demographers, geographers, sociologists, and policy
makers. Before delving into the research ﬁndings, I provide context to farm to school
programs. I turn ﬁrst to the emergence and development of farm to school programs in the
United States. This involves a discussion of their “vertical” or structural dimensions

including their institutional, regulatory, and political context (Sonnino & Marsden,

2006:189). I then describe the concepts of embeddedness, marketness, and instrumentalism
as they relate to AAFNS. These concepts have been used as theoretical tools for
understanding the nature of stakeholder involvement in AAFNS like farm to school
programs. I conclude this chapter with a discussion'of my research methods and an

overview of the manuscripts in the dissertation

Emergence and development of farm to school programs in the United States

Farm to school programs emerged in the United States in the mid-1990s as a
response to the lack of proﬁtable and stable market opportunities for family farmers and
increasing prevalence of childhood overweight (Azuma & Fisher, 2001). The challenges
to farm proﬁtability have evolved over the past century as the structure of agriculture in
the United States has changed drastically. At the turn of the 20th century, more than one
Ont of every three Americans lived on farms (Lobao & Meyer, 2001). The typical farm
family produced a wide range of commodities, some of which were sold on the market
but most which were exchanged for goods and services within the local community or
used for personal consumption (Lyson, 2004). “In this social and economic context, the
household, the community, and the economy were tightly bound up with one
another. . .the economy was embedded in the social relations of the farm household and
the rural community” (Lyson, 2004:8). In less than 100 years, agriculture in the United
States was transformed from one of small, family owned and operated farms that
produced a diversity of commodities to one in which a handful of large, industrial-scale,

specialized producers control the bulk of the food produced in this country (Lyson,

2004). This trend toward concentration and consolidation in food production is reﬂected
throughout what has become a global agrifood system (Hendrickson & Heffernan, 1999).

For farmers in the United States (and elsewhere), the capitalist development of
agriculture has resulted in unstable markets for their products. As a result, many farmers
have had to take what Mooney (1988), a sociologist whose work signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced
agricultural research in the 19805, refers to as “detours” in order to avoid being pushed
out of agriculture altogether. Examples of detours include taking on more debt, entering
into contract relationships, farming part-time, or tenancy. In each instance, farmers avoid
being relegated to the working class, but at the same time, they sacriﬁce some personal
autonomy by relinquishing authority to others outside the farm — ﬁnance capital, agri-
business, off-farm employers, or land owners — who dictate the terms of interaction and
extract proﬁt from the producer (Mooney, 1988). Although Mooney (1988) omitted any
discussion of the role of new market opportunities or value-added agriculture, school
food service markets also may function as a detour.

Farm to school programs are based on the premise that family farmers can beneﬁt
from the sizeable market of federal school food programs (Allen & Guthman, 2006). In
ﬁscal year 2006 alone, the federal government spent more than 10 billion dollars on
school meals (US. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, 2007a,b).
According to Allen and Guthman (20062407) the National School Lunch Program
(N SLP), which encourages “the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural
commodities and other food,” has disproportionately beneﬁted large-scale growers.
Advocates have argued that by forging direct relationships with schools, small- and mid-

size family farmers can beneﬁt from school food service sales and gain access to a stable

and reliable market that will return a fair price for their product (Azuma & Fisher, 2001).
To date, few studies have examined the potential of school food service to provide a
viable market opportunity for farmers. One study of six organic farmers supplying food
to schools in California found that income generated through school food service sales
had a negligible impact on farmers’ economic well-being (Ohmart, 2002). In spite of this,
these farmers were motivated to continue selling their product to schools. They not only
saw future economic potential in farm to school programs, but also desired to reap what
they considered were the intrinsic beneﬁts of the program — serving children healthful
foods and educating children about agriculture. And anecdotal reports tend to conﬁrm
that, contrary to the rosiest projections of the program’s advocates, farm to school
programs are not leading to a ﬁnancial windfall for participating farmers (Azuma &
Fisher, 2001; Joshi & Beery, 2007). Logistical challenges such as ordering and delivering
produce and ﬁnancial constraints of school food service pose major barriers to farm-
direct sales (Azuma & Fisher, 2001; Berkenkamp, 2006; Ohmart, 2002). Still, farm to
school programs are promoted as an important opportunity for farmers (National Farm to
School Program, 2007).

While ﬁnding proﬁtable markets for small- and mid-size family farmers in
America continues to be a challenge, another negative trend involving food has emerged.
Since the 1960s, the prevalence of overweight among US. children and youth has tripled,
causing policymakers to rank it as a critical public health threat (Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention; Koplan, Liverman, & Kraak, 2005). The increase in childhood
overweight has focused attention on the need to address children’s dietary habits and

physical activity patterns. Critical nutrition concerns about children’s health include high

intakes of dietary fat and inadequate intakes of ﬁber-rich foods (N icklas & Johnson,
2004). In addition, recent research suggests that children are not eating the recommended
number of servings for fruits and vegetables needed for optimal health (Guenther, Dodd,
Reedy, & Krebs-Smith, 2006).

Health professionals agree that schools can and should play a key role in
improving children’s health (Koplan, Liverman, & Kraak, 2005; Story, Kaphingst, &
French, 2006). In 2001 , 47.7 million students were enrolled in public elementary and
secondary schools in the United States (National Center for Education Statistics, 2007).
In addition to being a convenient focal point for reaching large numbers of the nation’s
youth, schools are uniquely positioned to promote healthful eating habits because
children eat a large share of their daily food while they are at school (O'Toole, Anderson,
Miller, & Guthrie, 2007; Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006). And for more than 26
million students receiving free- or reduced-price lunch, school meals may be their best
and sometimes only meal (Franco, 2001). Food offered at school is primarily available
through reimbursable meals programs (i.e. National School Lunch and Breakfast
Programs) but competitive foods are sold as a la carte items in the cafeteria, in vending
machines, and in snack bars.

Farm to school programs have emerged at a time when there is growing concern
about the quality of school food and increasingly tight budgets in school food service
(Allen & Guthman, 2006; Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006). Although federal meals
program regulations have always included nutrition guidelines, the ﬁrst School Nutrition
Dietary Assessment Study (SNDA-I) revealed that in academic year (AY) 1991-92,

reimbursable school lunches were not consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for

Americans (Fox, Crepinsek, Conner, & Battaglia, 2001; US. Department of Health and
Human Services & US. Department of Agriculture, 2005). Several years later, the US.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched the School Meals Initiative for Healthy
Children to improve the nutritional quality of these meals by bringing them into
compliance with the Dietary Guidelines. Since then, the quality of reimbursable meals
has improved substantially, though researchers say the nutritional proﬁle of these meals
is “not yet what it should be” (Story, Kaphingst, & French, 20062113). Of greater
concern, however, is the availability of foods sold at school beyond the reimbursable
school meals. These competitive foods can create an unhealthy school food environment
that encourages poor eating habits (French, Story, Fulkerson, & Gerlach, 2003).
Competitive foods that are available for sale alongside reimbursable meals sometimes
include fruits and vegetables, but also high-sugar and high-fat items like soft drinks,
chips, cookies, doughnuts, and increasingly, heavily advertised fast-food (e.g. Taco Bell,
Domino’s, Pizza Hut).

Budget pressures have complicated schools’ efforts to improve the quality of their
food programs. School food service, once included in the local school district budget,
must often now be self-supporting and in addition to expenses associated with food,
labor, and equipment, many school food programs also cover the cost for utilities, trash
removal, rent, and building maintenance (Snyder, Lytle, Pellegrino, Anderson, & Selk,
1995; Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006; Wagner, Senauer, & Runge, 2007). The cost of
operating a school food program is covered primarily by federal subsidies and cafeteria
sales. Federal subsidies include both meal reimbursements and commodities. In AY

2007-2008, schools in which less than 60 percent of lunches served in the preceding year

10

were served free or at a reduced price had the following reimbursement rates: $2.47 for
free meals or meals served to children in families at or below 130 percent of the poverty
line3, $2.07 for reduced-price meals or meals served to children in families between 130
and 185 percent of the poverty line, and $0.23 for full-price or paid meals served to
children above 185 percent of the poverty line. Schools in which more than 60 percent of
lunches served in the preceding year were served ﬁ'ee or at a reduced price had
reimbursement rates of $2.49, $2.09, and $0.25 for free, reduced-price, and paid meals,
respectively (Food and Nutrition Service USDA, 2007b). In addition to cash
reimbursements for breakfasts and lunches served, schools participating in the National
School Lunch Program also are eligible to receive $0.1875 in commodities for each lunch
served (Food and Nutrition Service USDA, 2007a). About 40 percent of this combined
revenue (including the value of commodities) is spent on food (Pannell-Martin Dorothy,
2007). Since participation in the school food program is not mandatory, schools need to
actively market and sell as many meals as possible in order to generate the revenue
needed for ﬁnancial solvency. The severe budget constraints of school food service have
forced many schools to serve popular but sometimes nutritionally inadequate foods that
are appealing to children (Snyder, Lytle, Pellegrino, Anderson, & Selk, 1995; Story,
Kaphingst, & French, 2006).

Farm to school program advocates assert that connecting children with locally
grown food through the cafeteria and other program activities can “play a central role in
fostering better health among students” without posing a burden on school food service

budgets (Azuma & Fisher, 2001 :6). According to one report, some food service

 

3 The 2008 federal poverty line for a family of four residing in the 48 contiguous states and the District of
Columbia is $21,200 (U .S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008).

11

professionals have claimed that buying fruits and vegetables directly from local farmers
allows schools to buy “ﬁ'esher — and possibly more nutritious — food” than they can
purchase through their broadline distributor while eliminating some of the transportation
and handling costs associated with shipping food aCross long distances (Tropp &
Olowolayemo, 2000:6). In addition, schools may have greater access to unique or highly
perishable items such as Asian pears and raspberries which are typically available
through broadline distributors but at a prohibitive cost (Tropp & Olowolayemo, 2000).
Few farm to school programs have assessed the impact on children's diets of
integrating locally grown foods into school food programs. One report on farm to school
programs in California suggest that farm-fresh salad bars are associated with higher
consumption of fruits and vegetables among children (Joshi & Beery, 2007). However, it
is not clear why children eat more fruits and vegetables when a salad bar is offered as an
option to the hot lunch. Does product localness play a role in food choices? Other
anecdotal reports also suggest that children eat more fruits and vegetables when they
come from local sources and that salad bar programs stocked with farm-fresh produce
have “lured students back into the school lunch program” (Tropp & Olowolayemo,
200027). Quantitative studies surveying school food professionals’ attitudes about local
school food procurement only hint at the perceived beneﬁts of the program. For example,
results from a recent survey of food service professionals in Michigan suggest that the
ability to support the local economy and community through local food purchases is a
key motivator for getting involved in farm to school program efforts (Izumi, Rostant,
Moss, & Hamm, 2006). Increased access to higher quality and fresher foods and good

public relations opportunities also were cited as important motivators.

12

The rhetoric of “cutting out the middleman” has been central to the economic and
other beneﬁts (e.g. agriculture literacy, nutrition, community involvement) attributed to
farm to school programs. By bypassing intermediaries such as wholesalers, brokers, and
food distributors, advocates have hoped that the prOgram would simultaneously create
viable markets for farmers and improve the quality of school food service. However,
even the seemingly simple act of getting food from farm to school has proven
problematic, emerging as a key barrier to making the program work (Allen & Guthman,
2006; Berkenkamp, 2006; Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi, Rostant, Moss, & Hamm,
2006). As a result, the farm-direct-to-school model has evolved to include a variety of
intermediaries. These include alternative distributors that buy and sell produce grown by
family farmers, such as Red Tomato(Red Tomato, n.d.), as well as dominant school food
service distributors, such as Gordon Food Service and Systems and Services Company
(SYSCO). Such market intermediaries play an important role in institutionalizing local
school food procurement. However, advocates have questioned how the involvement of
distributors inﬂuences the programs’ potential to change school food procurement
practices to reﬂect a more sustainable agrifood system (Ohmart & Markley, 2007). In the
following section, I provide a theoretical framework for analyzing the nature of

stakeholder involvement in AAFNS like farm to school.

Embeddedness, marketness, and instrumentalism: A theoretical framework for
studying farm to school programs
The notion of embeddedness has been widely used to understand the nature of

AAFNS like farmers’ markets (Hinrichs, 2000; Kirwan, 2004; Winter, 2003) and

13

community supported agriculture (Hinrichs, 2000), as well as certiﬁcation schemes
associated with fair trade (Jaffee, 2007), label of origin systems (Barham, 2003), and
food production processes (Higgins, Dibden, & Cocklin, 2008). “Embeddedness
expresses the idea that the economy is not autonomous as assumed in self-regulating
markets, but subordinated to politics, religion, and social relations” (Block, 20012xxiii).
The origin of this idea can be traced back to Polanyi’s ([1944] 2001) critique of the
market economy. He argued that throughout history, economies have always been
embedded within the social fabric of our societies. However, as our societies became
increasingly subordinated to the demands of capital, the market became increasingly
disembedded from society. Polanyi ([1944] 2001) argued that if left unchecked, this
would lead to the annihilation of society.
“For the alleged commodity ‘labor power’ cannot be shoved about. . .In
disposing of a man’s labor power the system would, incidentally, dispose of
the physical, psychological, moral entity ‘man’ attached to that tag. . .Nature
would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and landscapes deﬁled,
rivers polluted, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and
raw materials destroyed...” (Polanyi, [1944] 2001 :76).
The logic underlying this argument is based on Polanyi’s distinction between real and
ﬁctitious commodities. From his perspective, commodities are those things that have
been produced for sale. Land (i.e. nature), labor (i.e. human activity), and money are
therefore, by deﬁnition, ﬁctitious commodities. The market economy expects these
ﬁctitious commodities to behave in the same way as real commodities. However, as
Polanyi ([1944] 2001) and others have argued, efforts to disembed the economy from

society inevitably encounter resistance. In other words, as the destructive consequences

of an unencumbered market become apparent, people will ﬁght back, the state will

14

intervene and the economy will swing back towards a more embedded position (Polanyi,
[1944] 2001).

Various scholars have drawn on Polanyi’s ([1944] 2001) critique of the market
economy, particularly the centrality of price, to understand the nature of economic
transactions in AAFNS. The proliferation of these networks in both the United States and
abroad has captured the attention of scholars from diverse disciplines who see the
transforrnative potential of these organizational forms as well as their potential to serve as
engines of rural development (Goodman, 2003; Holloway & Kneafsey, 2000; Jaffee,
2007; Kirwan, 2004; Kloppenburg, Hendrickson, & Stevenson, 1996; Lyson, 2004;
Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000; Wright & Middendorf, 2007).

AAFNS are based on the purposeful incorporation (or re-embedding) of social,
environmental, equity, and health issues into the production and consumption of food
(Kirwan, 2004). In this context, embeddedness refers to the values (e. g. community,
environment, health) and non-price variables (e. g. equity, localness, quality) that
inﬂuence economic transactions. Scholars have argued that if communicated to the
consumer, these issues have the potential to create a comparative advantage in the
marketplace (Kirwan, 2004; Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000). “The successful
translation of this information allows products to be differentiated from more anonymous
commodities and potentially to command a premium price if the encoded or embedded
information is considered valuable” (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000:425). It also
allows consumers to evaluate the claims made (e. g. organic, fair trade, rBGH-free) and
act based on the information provided (Dupuis, 2000). For example, some consumers

shopping at the farmers’ market may be willing to pay more for vegetables grown by

15

people they know and trust. Others may be willing to pay a premium price for fair trade
coffee so that coffee producers can be fairly compensated for their labor.

AAFNS emphasize the role of the producer-consumer relationship in constructing
value and meaning of a product. These relationships are mediated through face-to-face
interactions (e. g. farmers’ markets), proximate networks that involve intermediaries who
buy and sell food within a speciﬁc region (e. g. dedicated retail stores), and extended
AAFNS that rely on standards and certiﬁcation schemes (e. g. Parmigiano Reggiano
cheese) (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000; Renting, Marsden, & Banks, 2003).With
AAFNS

“. . .it is not the number of times a product is handled or the distance over

which it is ultimately transported which is necessarily critical, but the fact

that the product reaches the consumer embedded with information. . .It is

this, which enables the consumer to make connections and associations with

the place/space of production, and, potentially, the values of the people

involve and the production methods employed” (Marsden, Banks, &

Bristow, 2000:425).

While embeddedness has proven to be a useful analytical tool, various scholars
have warned against its often one—sided application, which has led to the tendency to
romanticize AAFNS (Born & Purcell, 2006; Goodman, 2004; Hinrichs, 2000; Winter,
2003). In her analysis of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture,
Hinrichs (2000) offers a corrective to the sometimes overly simplistic or optimistic
readings of direct agricultural markets by qualifying embeddedness. She does so using
the concepts of marketness and instrumentalism to more accurately capture the nature of
economic transactions in these networks.

“High marketness means that there is nothing to interfere with the

dominance of price considerations, but as one moves down the continuum to

lower levels of marketness, non-price considerations take on greater
importance. It is not as though prices are irrelevant under conditions of low

16

marketness, it is just that they compete with other variables, so that one

would expect price differences to be much larger before they lead actors to

respond” (Block, 1990251).

Instrumentalism supplements marketness and is useful for evaluating the motives
of economic actors (Block, 1990). While marketness measures the strength of price
signals, instrumentalism analyzes the extent to which individual economic gain plays into
economic transactions. At one end of the continuum, behavior is motivated purely by
economic self-interest. However, as one moves down the spectrum to lower levels of
instrumentalism, behavior is inﬂuenced by variables such as community, family, and
morality. It is important to note that although the concepts of marketness and
instrumentalism are closely related, high levels of marketness do not always correspond
to high levels of instrumentalism or vice versa. As Block (1990:54) notes, “individuals
can pursue their economic self-interest in ways that have nothing to do with price.” For
example, a farmer may give schools a price-break for his product (low marketness) with
the hope that he will be awarded future sales (high instrumentalism) or that the diet of
children will improve (low instrumentalism). The latter provides an example of the power
of non-price variables in economic transactions. Such non-opportunistic behavior is
considered evidence of embeddedness (Block, 1990).

The concepts of embeddedness, marketness, and instrumentalism apply to farm to
school programs, which are loaded with examples of non—price considerations —-
supporting the community, providing equitable payments to farmers, promoting health,
and so on. However, the few studies that have probed farmers’ and food service
professionals’ motivations to buy and sell locally grown food make clear that the short-

and long-term economic potential of these programs also are important considerations.

17

Integrating the tensions between embeddedness, marketness, and instrumentalism into the
farm to school program discourse is critical for analyzing these efforts.

Equally important as farm to school programs proliferate is considering how
stakeholders negotiate these tensions within the context of the wider regulatory,
institutional, and political school food environment. Scholars have argued that

“if we want to understand how alternative food networks are built, shaped,

and reproduced over time and space and whether or not this process is

realistically contributing to a new rural development paradigm, the

development of these networks must be analyzed at two different, but

strongly interrelated, levels” (Sonnino & Marsden, 2006:189).

Thus, the embeddedness of AAFN S should be assessed at the “horizontal” level,
which considers local conditions and agency, and at the “vertical” level, which involves
larger society, economy, and polity (Sonnino & Marsden, 2006:189).

Although they do not preempt federal law, which prohibits the use of geographic
preferences when evaluating bids for the school food program, these new state laws are
evidence of the groundswell of political support around farm to school. At this level, state
lines have been used as boundaries for what is considered “local.” For example, in
Kentucky, state agencies must purchase Kentucky-grown agricultural product if price and
quality are equal (Kentucky Legislature, 2006). And in Massachusetts, school districts are
allowed to use a 10 percent price preference above the lowest bid to buy Massachusetts-
grown product (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2006).

Farm to school programs are at a critical juncture in their development. As
political support has grown, the focus of the effort to institutionalize farm to school

programs has shifted from “local” as a means to an end (e. g. to provide stable, reliable,

fair markets for independent farmers) to an end in itself. As various scholars have

18

asserted, there is nothing inherently virtuous about the local scale (Allen, FitzSimmons,
Goodman, & Warner, 2003; Bellows & Hamm, 2001; Born & Purcell, 2006). The
outcomes of alternative agrifood efforts that are focused on relocalizing the food system
can have both good and bad outcomes that depend On the agendas of actors who take
advantage of such scalar strategies (Born & Purcell, 2006). For example, national
corporations like SYSCO have already begun tapping into the niche farm to school
program market through its Buy Local, Sell Fresh campaign. However, a recent study of
the potential role of SYSCO in relocalizing the food system suggests that notions of
embeddedness are largely absent from this campaign (Kennedy, 2007). Jaffee (2007) has
similarly questioned the degree to which products that travel relatively long distances
through complex commodity chains can remain embedded. Without qualifying “local”
with non-economic values such as community and equitable payments to farmers, farm to
school programs become vulnerable to cooptation by individuals and corporations that
want to appropriate the symbolic meanings associated with locally grown food. Yet the
involvement of intermediaries in farm to school is not automatically undesirable, and in
fact, distributors are critical to the program’s long-term success. The central question is,
what types of intermediaries can help to facilitate the integration of locally grown foods

into the cafeteria without compromising the values that undergird these efforts?

Methods
This study used a case study approach and qualitative methods. Research
participants were recruited from seven farm to school programs in the Upper Midwest

and Northeast regions of the United States between January and April 2006. Farm to

19

school programs were selected through maximum variation sampling, a purposeful
sampling technique aimed at capturing the central themes that emerge from diverse cases
(Patton, 2002). This was the most appropriate sampling technique because I was
interested in common patterns across farm to school programs. Given the site speciﬁcity
of farm to school programs, common themes are of particular interest in describing their
core experiences. This nonrandom sampling technique also was appropriate because the
purpose of this research was to understand the complexity of individual farm to school
programs and not to generalize ﬁndings. The Upper Midwest and Northeast regions of
the United States were selected as the geographic boundaries of our study to capture a
variety of distribution strategies for local school food procurement, within an area that is
climatologically similar. States in which the programs are located are not revealed to
protect the identities of the research participants. To maximize the variation of farm to
school programs in this study, I identiﬁed diverse characteristics or criteria for
constructing my sample of farm to school programs —- region (Upper Midwest or
Northeast), site (i.e. rural, suburban, urban), student populations, free- and reduced lunch
participation rate, number of schools, central receiving, and distribution strategy (i.e.
farm-direct—to-school, wholesaler-to-school, distributor-to-school). In addition, I was
interested in the perspectives of those school districts that had been integrating locally
grown foods into their school food programs as a regular part of their food procurement
routine for at least two years, a length of time I felt would allow stakeholders to articulate
the opportunities and challenges to local school food procurement. I shared my criteria
with two key informants — both state-level farm to school program advocates — who

identiﬁed eight programs. I contacted the food service professional responsible for local

20

food procurement at all eight programs to request their participation in my study. One
food service professional did not return my phone calls. Food service professionals at
seven school districts were invited to participate in my study as were the farmers and
food distributors they identiﬁed as sources for locally grown food. Seven food service
professionals, seven farmers, and four food distributors participated in the study. A
sampling frame (Table 6-1) that captures the diversity of my sample is included in
Appendix A.

This study was approved through the Human Research Protection Program at
Michigan State University (#X05-886). For conﬁdentiality, pseudonyms are used to
identify the research participants and all distinguishing characteristics are veiled to

protect their identities.

Data collection

In-depth interviews were used as the primary data collection strategy in order to
adequately capture the nature of participants’ experiences. Procurement documents and
menus also were collected and examined in order to cross-check ﬁndings and enhance
validity of the results. In addition, newsletters, handbooks, government reports, and other
such documents were used to provide additional context for the individual cases and to
situate each program within the broader national farm to school program effort.

Each research participant was interviewed twice. The ﬁrst interview was
conducted between January and April 2006 and a follow-up interview was conducted
between March and April 2007. The purpose of the ﬁrst interview was two-fold. First, I

wanted to gain insight into the day-to-day reality of participants that is unavailable in the

21

existing literature. Second, I wanted to explore the nature of participants’ involvement in
their respective farm to school program. The purpose of the second interview was to
follow-up on themes, concepts, and processes that emerged during the ﬁrst interview.
Before beginning the ﬁrst interview, each research participant was given an informed
consent document that they read and signed to indicate their voluntary participation in the
study (Appendix B). The document described the purpose of the research, explained how
the individual’s privacy would be protected, and the risks associated with participating in
the study. In addition, my contact information and the contact information for the board
chair of the University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects was provided.
At the beginning of the second interview, each research participant was given a photo
release form that they signed authorizing me to take digital photographs of their business.
All interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. Semi-structured
interview guides were used to ensure that all questions that were important to the research
were covered and to accommodate the limited amount of time with each of the
participants (Appendix C). The interview guide was an evolving document and was
revised regularly to reﬂect new themes that emerged from the interviews. Although an
interview guide was used to maintain control of the interview, the order in which
questions were asked and the ﬂow of the interview was ﬂexible. Probes and follow-up
question were asked to elicit depth of information and to follow-up on leads initiated by
the participants. The interviews lasted between 30 and 90 minutes and took place in
research participants’ ofﬁces, although some questions were asked on tours of their
workplaces. These tours were invaluable for providing context to the participants’

interview responses.

22

Data analysis

The data were analyzed in two stages. In the early stages of the study, while data
were still being collected, memos were written after each data collection. The purpose of
the memos was to systematically summarize the interview immediately after a contact and
to capture early interpretations (Miles & Huberman, 1994). In addition, emerging themes
and concepts were identiﬁed and codes were created. The codes were deﬁned operationally
and organized into a code dictionary that included the code name, deﬁnition, rule, and
example for when each code should be applied. After interview transcripts were coded,
they were cross-checked by another researcher. Coding was an iterative process. New
codes progressively emerged during the analysis and those that were no longer appropriate
were discarded while others were broken down into sub-codes or reﬁned. When major code
changes were made, data that had already been coded were recoded with a revised
dictionary. The ﬁnal code dictionary (Table 6-2) is included in Appendix D.

After all of the interviews were coded a series of displays for drawing and verifying
conclusions about the data were developed (Appendix E). Displays allow researchers to
reduce their data and systematically organize answers to their research questions (Miles &
Huberman, 1994). Displays increase the chance of drawing and verifying valid conclusions
because they are arranged coherently to allow for careful comparisons within and across
cases (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The data were analyzed by stakeholder group. For food
service professionals, seven codes related to their motivations for buying locally grown
food for their cafeterias were identiﬁed: Food Quality, School Staff Support for Farm to
School Program, Relationships (children/ food service staff and farmer), Competitive Price,

Flexible Speciﬁcations, Support Local Economy or Community, Food Education. The

23

passages associated with these codes were extracted from each interview transcript. The
codes and passages were categorized into the following three themes: (1) The students like
it, (2) The price is right, and (3) We’re helping our local farmer. The codes, passages, and
themes were compared across the seven food service professionals and organized into a
conceptually clustered matrix that included themes (columns) and school food service
professionals (rows) (Table 6-3). For each cell, a quotation or summary phrase was ﬁrst
entered to indicate the relevance of the theme for each food service professional. The data
in the display were further reduced by using acronyms to indicate codes. Conclusions were
drawn about each case and across cases by reading down the columns and across rows.
This process of extracting and comparing codes, passages, and themes to draw conclusions
about the data was repeated for food distributors and farmers.

For food distributors, a conceptually clustered matrix of their perspectives about
farm to school programs was created (Table 6-4). The matrix is a birds-eye view of the four
distributors and captures key themes including their motivations for buying and selling
locally grown food, their characterization of the challenges associated with local school
food procurement, and the nature of their relationships with farmers. In addition, the matrix
allows for comparison between the four food distributors. Six codes related to the food
distributors’ motivations for buying and selling locally grown food were identiﬁed:
Convenient Location, Defensive Localism, Support Local Economy or Community, Future
Customer, Food Quality, Freight Savings. Five codes related to their characterization of the
challenges associated with local school food procurement were identiﬁed: Low Volumes,

USDA Commodity Programs, Distribution, School Year, Budget Constraints.

24

The conceptually clustered matrix for farmers draws out three key themes: (1)
Market Potential, (2) Ancillary Motives, and (3) Challenges (Table 6-5). Four codes that
illustrate farmers’ perspective of the market potential of school food service sales were
identiﬁed: Convenient Location, Fair Price, Future Customer, Market Diversiﬁcation.
Ancillary motivations that emerged during interviews with farmers were Child Nutrition,
Support Local Economy or Community, and Defensive Localism. Finally, ﬁve codes that
described farmers’ perspectives of the challenges associated with local school food
procurement were identiﬁed: Bidding Process, USDA Community Programs, School Year,
Low Volumes, and School Food Budget Constraints.

Transcribed interviews, memos, and feedback ﬁom research participants and
colleagues were used to verify my conclusions. Atlas.ti 5.2 (Atlas.ti 5.2, Scientiﬁc Software
Development GmbH, Berlin), a qualitative data analysis software package, was used to
code the data, organize memos, and note patterns and themes. Data displays were created

by hand.

Overview of the chapters

Each of the following chapters focuses on the perspectives of farmers, food
service professionals, or food distributors. The ﬁndings are organized by stakeholder
group to capture the inﬂuence of social location on the opportunities and challenges of
local school food procurement. The chapters are written for publication in journals and
follow speciﬁc style requirements.

Chapter two focuses on the perspectives of farmers and the potential of school

food service to provide them with a viable market opportunity. This chapter begins with a

25

review of the theoretical and empirical complexity of AAFNS by highlighting the blurred
boundaries between their more or less conventional and alternative characteristics and
how they interact with their wider environment. Since the audience for this manuscript
includes rural planners, agricultural economists, and sociologists who may not be familiar
with the structural complexity of school food service, I provide an overview of the
political, regulatory, and institutional forces that have shaped the emergence and
development of farm to school programs in the United States. The interactions between
the horizontal and vertical dimensions of farm to school programs help to explain the
potential of school food service to provide farmers with a fair market for their products.
Chapter three describes food service professionals’ motivations to buy locally
grown food for their cafeterias. Food service professionals across the country have shown
a high degree of interest in farm to school programs (Izumi, Rostant, Moss, & Hamm,
2006; National Farm to School Program, 2007). However, they work under intense time
and budget constraints that can make local school food procurement a daunting task
(Berkenkamp, 2006). The perspectives of the food service professionals proﬁled in this
dissertation provide insight into why they buy locally grown food for their cafeterias as
well as some of the trade-offs of different local food procurement strategies. As
gatekeepers of school food service, their perspectives are critical to the long-term success
of farm to school programs. The audience for this manuscript is readers of the Journal of
Nutrition Education and Behavior. The term “embeddedness” is not used in chapter three
due to page limitations of the journal that prevent its full explication. However, the non-
price considerations that the food service professionals discussed are illustrated in detail.

This chapter does not address the challenges of local school food procurement because

26

those identiﬁed by the food service professionals who participated in this research did not
provide additional depth to food service professionals’ concerns that have already been
identiﬁed in the literature (Berkenkamp, 2006; Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi,
Rostant, Moss, & Hamm, 2006).

Chapter four focuses on the perspectives of regionally-based mid-tier food
distributors. As schools have sought to increase the scale and scope of their farm to
school program efforts, such intermediaries have become necessary and important
stakeholders. Although advocates have recognized the need for food distributors, serious
questions about the involvement of more conventional intermediaries have been raised.
This manuscript is intended for audiences that Span the humanities, social sciences, food
and nutrition studies, and agriculture. Although regionally-based mid-tier food
distributors have received little attention from farm to school program academics and
activists, these food distributors-in-the-middle may play an important role in enabling
advocates to achieve their goals due to the relationships they already have with farmers.

Each chapter in this dissertation focuses on one stakeholder group and can be read
as a stand alone manuscript. As a whole, this dissertation provides new insights into the
opportunities and challenges of farm to school programs. In chapter ﬁve, I summarize the
ﬁndings of each chapter but focus on broad implications of the stakeholders’
perspectives. Speciﬁcally, I return to the structural constraints that limit the integration of
locally grown foods into school food programs and offer recommendations for
strengthening the potential of local school food procurement to improve farmers’

livelihoods and children’s health. Finally, I suggest areas for future research and practice.

27

CHAPTER TWO:

PERSPECTIVES OF FARMERS

I think education is the best way we can sustain ourselves. We need to

make them aware that food doesn’t come from a grocery store. It comes

from a farm and a grower that works tirelessly to get that food out there.
--J.D. Rinehart (2008)

Introduction

Activists and academics across Europe and the United States increasingly are
advocating for public procurement of locally grown food as a key market opportunity for
small- and mid-size family farmers (Allen & Guthman, 2006; Kloppenburg & Hassanein,
2006; Morgan & Morley, 2002; Morgan & Sonnino, 2007; Watts, Ilbery, & Maye, 2005).
Watts, Ilbery and Maye (2005235) for example, have noted that the “beneﬁcial impacts of
this could be pronounced in lagging regions, where public sector buying power can have
a signiﬁcant impact on economic activity.” Public K-12 schools are prominent among the
institutions that have the potential to provide a signiﬁcant boost to rural economies
(Morgan & Morley, 2002; Morgan & Sonnino, 2007; Tropp & Olowolayemo, 2000;
Vallianatos, Gottlieb, & Haase, 2004). In ﬁscal year 2006, the US. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) spent $8.2 billion on the National School Lunch Program (N SLP), a
federally assisted meal program operating in public and non-proﬁt private schools as well
as childcare institutions (U .S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service,
2007a). This represents a “potentially huge” and relatively untapped market for farmers
who could sell their product directly to schools (V allianatos, Gottlieb, & Haase,

2004:415). Advocates assert that in addition to providing new market opportunities for

28

farmers, these “farm to school” programs can help curb the epidemic of childhood
overweight by increasing children’s access to fresh fruits and vegetables (Azuma &
Fisher, 2001).

“Farm to school program” is a broad term that has been used to describe efforts
that link schools with local agriculture. These efforts are diverse and include a range of
activities such as harvest festivals, ﬁeld trips to farms, school gardens, and educational
visits from farmers. Integrating locally grown food into the schoOl food program (also
known as “farm to cafeteria”) has been described as the “cornerstone” of farm to school
programs (Allen & Guthman, 2006:413) and appears to hold the greatest short- and long-
term potential to contribute to farmers’ incomes.

Farm to school programs have widely been framed as a market opportunity for
farmers, yet few studies have examined the impact of school food service sales on
farmers’ incomes. One study of six organic farmers supplying produce to schools in
California (Ohmart, 2002) found that revenue generated through school food service sales
had a negligible impact on farmers’ incomes. However, the economic potential of these
programs was of secondary importance to these farmers; they were primarily motivated
to participate for philosophical reasons. Serving children healthful foods and educating
them about agriculture were intrinsic beneﬁts they derived from selling their product to
school food service.

Farm to school program rhetoric reﬂects the antinomy between the local and
global observed in the AAFN literature. In one of the earliest reports that focus on these
efforts, Azuma and Fisher (2001) wrote that:

“Local and regional farmers require proﬁtable and stable markets for their
products. Prices that farmers receive for many commodities have dropped

29

appreciably in recent years. Globalization and concentration in agri-

business have also reduced access to markets, and resulted in unfair prices

offered to family farmers” (Azuma & Fisher, 20012Executive Summary).

In the last decade, scholarly interest in the potential role of AAFNS in rural
development has grown. At their heart, AAFNS are'considered new modes of food
provisioning that reconnect producers with consumers and short-circuits characteristics
(e. g. standardized, intensive, disembedded) associated with more industrial and
conventional food systems (Ilbery & Maye, 2005; Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000;
Renting, Marsden, & Banks, 2003). These networks are considered one of the “key
dimensions of new rural development patterns now emerging” (Renting, Marsden, &
Banks, 20032393; van der Ploeg et al., 2000). According to Marsden et al. (2000) they
can engender new relationships between producers and consumers that “allow products to
be differentiated from more anonymous commodities and potentially to command a
premium price” (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000:425).

Like other AAFNS, farm to school programs emphasize factors other than price,
such as product localness, environmental beneﬁts (6. g. decreased food miles, sustainable
production practices), long-term relationships, agriculture literacy, and equitable
payments to farmers (Azuma & Fisher, 2001). According to advocates, sales to school
food service can provide family farmers — who face stern competition from what has
become a globalized food and agriculture system — with new and stable markets and an
important source of income generation (Azuma & Fisher, 2001; Tropp & Olowolayemo,
2000). In this way, school markets can ftmction as a “detour” to the capitalist
development of agriculture. Mooney (1988) has shown that there are a number of detours

that can be taken by farmers in an effort to avoid being pushed out of agriculture by

30

larger structural forces. Examples include taking on more debt, entering into contract
relations, part-time farming, or tenancy. In each relation, farmers avoid proletarianization
but at the same time, they sacriﬁce some personal autonomy by relinquishing authority to
others outside the farm (e. g. ﬁnance capital, agri-business, off-farm employers, land
owners) who dictate the terms of interaction and extract proﬁt (Mooney, 1988).
Mooney’s (1988) work signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced agricultural sociological research in the
19803, yet he omitted any discussion of the role of new market opportunities or value-
added agriculture as ways to further avoid capitalist penetration of agriculture. By
forming direct, embedded relationships with schools, advocates have argued that farmers
can capture higher returns for their products and thus serve as a means to preserve family
farming (Azuma & Fisher, 2001).

Given growing support for and rapid proliferation of farm to school programs
over the past decade, an in-depth analysis of farmers’ perspectives of these programs is
both timely and critical. As Allen (2004) has pointed out, this type of analysis is
important for enabling alternative agrifood efforts like farm to school programs to
accomplish their goals and minimize unintended or potentially contradictory outcomes.
The AAFN literature has a number of conceptual parallels with farm to school programs
and therefore provides a lens through which to understand farmers’ involvement in these
efforts.

This paper is divided into four sections. First, we begin by providing an overview
of the recent literature on the hybridity of AAFNS. We then discuss the complex political,
regulatory, and institutional forces that have shaped the development of farm to school

programs in the United States. Third, using interview data from farmers participating in

31

one of seven farm to school programs in the Upper Midwest and Northeast regions of the
United States, we examine the nature of farmers’ motivation to sell their product to
schools as well as the potential of school food service sales to provide a stable market for
farmers. Our ﬁndings reveal a tension between farthers’ desire for autonomy and
economic proﬁtability. In addition, the potential of farm to school programs to contribute
to farrners’ incomes is limited by the structural context of school food service. We
conclude with a discussion of the hybridity of farm to school programs and its theoretical

and practical implications.

The hybrid nature of alternative agrifood networks

The notion of embeddedness has been used as a tool to understand the nature of
AAFNS and their potential to contribute to rural development. Its origins trace back to
Polanyi ([1944] 2001) who argued that markets have always been embedded in the social
and cultural fabric of our societies. However, as our societies became increasingly
subordinated to the demands of capital, the market became increasingly disembedded
from society. Polanyi ([1944] 2001) argued that the goal of disembedded, fully self-
regulating market economies is a utopian project that has never existed and never will
exist; as its destructive consequences become apparent, people will resist and economies
will swing back towards a more embedded position. “The term ‘embeddedness’ expresses
the idea that the economy is not autonomous, as it must be in economic theory, but
subordinated to politics, religion, and social relations” (Block, 2001:xxiii).

Various scholars have used embeddedness to distinguish AAFNS from their more

conventional counterparts. AAFNS are based on the purposive incorporation (or re-

32

embedding) of social, environmental, equity, and health issues into the production and
consumption of food (Kirwan, 2004). In this context, embeddedness refers to the values
(e. g. community, environment, health) and non-price variables (e. g. equity, localness,
quality) that inﬂuence economic transactions. Scholars have argued that the value of the
social and local embeddedness of production, if successﬁrlly communicated to the
consumer, allows products to be differentiated from more anonymous commodities
which gives them a comparative advantage in the marketplace (Kirwan, 2004; Marsden,
Banks, & Bristow, 2000). AAFNS emphasize the role of the producer-consumer
relationship in constructing value and meaning of the product. Through face-to-face
interactions as well as more extended relations, scholars have argued that AAFNS can
engender relationships between producers and consumers that are based on notions of
trust, community, and regard (Holloway & Kneafsey, 2000; Kirwan, 2004; Sage, 2003;
Winter, 2003).

Although embeddedness has been a useful tool to conceptualize the nature of
AAFNS, its emphasis in the literature often has resulted in overly sanguine interpretations
of local economic relations (Goodman, 2004; Hinrichs, 2000; Sonnino & Marsden,
2006). Hinrichs (2000) offers a counter-perspective by revealing tensions between
embeddedness and economic self-interest in her analysis of farmers’ markets and
community supported agriculture, two AAFNS that are assumed to be built upon notions
of trust and social connection between producers and consumers. Building on Block
(1990), she draws on the continuums of marketness and instrumentalism to more
accurately describe the nature of these economic transactions (Hinrichs, 2000).

“High marketness means that there is nothing to interfere with the
dominance of price considerations, but as one moves down the continuum

33

to lower levels of marketness, non-price considerations take on greater

importance. It is not as though prices are irrelevant under conditions of

low marketness, it is just that they compete with other variables, so that

one would expect price differences to be much larger before they lead

actors to respon ” (Block, 1990:51).
At the lower end of the spectrum then, price may compete with other variables such as
social relations, quality, product localness, and attributes such as organic or fair trade.

The notion of instrumentalism supplements marketness and is useful for
evaluating the motives of economic actors (Block, 1990). At one end of the continuum,
behavior is motivated purely by economic self-interest. However, as one moves down the
spectrum to lower levels of instrumentalism, behavior is inﬂuenced by variables such as
ﬁ'iendship, family, and morality. Together, these two concepts — marketness and
instrumentalism — form a “conceptual shadow” to embeddedness (Hinrichs, 20002297).
AS the importance of price decreases (low marketness), economic behavior tends to
become more embedded in non-price considerations (low instrumentalism). High
marketness, however, is not always associated with high instrumentalism and vice versa.
As noted by Block (1990), individuals can pursue their economic self-interest in ways
that have nothing to do with price. For example, a farmer may donate his product to a
school (low marketness) with the hope that he will be awarded a future contract (high
instrumentalism) or that the diets of children will be improved (low instrumentalism).

Recent analysis and theorization of AAFNS has added complexity to the role of
such networks in rural development by highlighting tensions between embeddedness,
marketness, and instrumentalism, and the blurred boundaries between their more or less

conventional and alternative characteristics (Goodman, 2004; Higgins, Dibden, &

Cocklin, 2008; Ilbery & Maye, 2005; Sonnino & Marsden, 2006). It has become

34

increasingly clear that the distinctions between alternative and conventional agrifood
systems are blurred and that farmers are likely to incorporate both into their production
and marketing strategies (Goodman, 2004; Higgins, Dibden, & Cocklin, 2008; Ilbery &
Maye, 2005; Maye & Ilbery, 2006; Murdoch, Marsden, & Banks, 2000; Sonnino &
Marsden, 2006; Watts, Ilbery, & Maye, 2005). Instead of representing a shift in values
and attitudes, AAFNS may be a pragmatic reﬂection of farmers’ need to spread their risk
across many different types of markets (Goodman, 2004) or to take “detours” to avoid
being pushed out of agriculture (Mooney, 1988).

Ilbery and Maye (2005:826) suggest that many, perhaps most, small-scale,
alternative operators will not be able to rely solely upon AAFNS and that “economic
imperatives will lead to a mixing of alternative (short) and conventional (long) chains” or
in other words, a hybridized strategy. For example, in their analysis of specialty livestock
products in the Scottish-English borders, Ilbery and Maye (2005) found that in order to
survive economically, alternative livestock producers often have to “dip into” more
conventional markets by selling to processors and wholesalers. In another study, Higgins
et al. (2008) emphasize that some beef farmers pursue Environmental Management
Systems, a process-based environmental certiﬁcation, as one of their many strategies for
marketing their product and increasing farm income. Furthermore, they indicate that
while certiﬁcation has allowed some early adopters to extract a premium for their product
through niche markets, this ﬁnancial beneﬁt may disappear in the future if such practices
become widely adopted. This ﬁnding suggests that the value added by AAFNS may be
temporal in nature and therefore unsustainable, supporting the need for a broad

“repertoire of rural survival strategies” (Goodman, 2004212).

35

Scholars also have called for a more holistic approach to embeddedness that
integrates the “wider institutional and governance system in which alternative food
systems carve and maintain their space” (Sonnino & Marsden, 20062190-191). For
example, government funding and encouragement, future environmental regulations, and
community expectations prompted the development of the Environmental Management
Systems certiﬁcation described above (Higgins, Dibden, & Cocklin, 2008).

Similarly, in a study of the evolution of three efforts to pursue certiﬁcation for
regional food products, Tregear, Arﬁni, Belleti and Marescotti (2007) found that
socioeconomic context and institutional involvement played key roles in shaping the
development of food qualiﬁcation schemes. Factors such as the agricultural history of the
region, diversity of producers, and cultural signiﬁcance of the product had complex
impacts on the type of qualiﬁcation strategies that were pursued. Local institutions
inﬂuenced the rural development potential of qualiﬁcation schemes through their
involvement in deﬁning and promoting the qualiﬁcation (Tregear, Arﬁni, Belletti, &
Marescotti, 2007).

In order to understand the potential impact of farm to school programs on
farmers’ individual incomes, it is ﬁrst necessary to establish the political, regulatory, and
institutional context within which this AAFN has developed and currently operates. From

this starting point, we will then probe farmers’ perspectives of farm to school programs.

A short history of farm to school program development in the United States

Most farm to school programs in the United States operate within the context of

public schools. It is this publicly ﬁrnded context that makes farm to school programs

36

significantly different from other AAFNS such as farmers’ markets or community
supported agriculture (Allen & Guthman, 2006). Since nearly all public schools
participate in the federally funded NSLP, most farm to school programs also must
comply with NSLP guidelines.

Farm to school programs have emerged at a time when there is increasing concern
about the quality of school food and increasingly tight budgets in school food service
(Allen & Guthman, 2006; Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006). Although the NSLP
regulations have always included nutrition guidelines, the ﬁrst School Nutrition Dietary
Assessment Study (SNDA-I) revealed that in the 1991-1992 academic year, reimbursable
school lunches were not consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (Fox,
Crepinsek, Conner, & Battaglia, 2001; US. Department of Health and Human Services &
US. Department of Agriculture, 2005). Several years later, the USDA launched the
School Meals Initiative for Healthy Children to improve the nutritional quality of these
meals by bringing them into compliance with the Dietary Guidelines (US. Department of
Health and Human Services & US. Department of Agriculture, 2005). Since then, the
nutritional quality of reimbursable school lunches has improved. However, the overall
school food environment, including the high-fat and high-sugar competitive foods4 that
are sold alongside reimbursable school meals, continues to need improvement (O'Toole,
Anderson, Miller, & Guthrie, 2007; Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006).

Budget pressures complicate schools’ efforts to improve the quality of school
meals. School food service, once included in the local school budget, must often now be
self-supporting and in addition to food, labor, and equipment, many schools cover the

cost for such expenses as utilities, trash removal, rent, and building maintenance (Story,

 

4 Competitive foods are all foods offered for sale at school except reimbursable meals.

37

Kaphingst, & French, 2006; Wagner, Senauer, & Runge, 2007). The cost of operating a
school food program is covered primarily by federal subsidies5 and cafeteria sales. Since
participation in the school food program is not mandatory, schools need to serve as many
meals as possible in order to generate the revenue needed for ﬁnancial solvency.
According to some scholars, such budget pressures have forced many schools to serve
popular, but sometimes nutritionally inadequate foods that are appealing to children
(Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006).

In 2002, the 1946 National School Lunch Act‘5 was amended to require the
Secretary of Agriculture to encourage institutions participating in the federal meals
program to purchase locally grown food to the maximum extent practicable (U .S.
Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, 2004). Although the modifying
clause weakens the directive, a number of advocates have used the amendment to help
catalyze farm to school programs. Since 2002, many states have passed their own bills to

give in-state preference to agricultural products (National Farm to School Program,
2007)

Despite this activity, much confusion exists about the rules that apply to local
school food procurement. Geographic preferences it turns out are in conﬂict with a
federal rule that prohibits schools participating in the NSLP to use such preferences when

evaluating their bids. As publicly ﬁmded institutions, schools participating in the NSLP

 

5 In the 2007-2008 school year, the federal reimbursement rates for schools in which more than 60 percent
of lunches served in the preceding year were served free or at a reduced price were $2.49 for every ﬁee
meal served, $2.09 for reduced-priced meals and $0.25 for full-priced meals. (Food and Nutrition Service
USDA, 2007b).

6 The purpose of the National School Lunch Act is to “safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's
children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food,
by assisting the States, through grants-in aid and other means, in providing an adequate supply of food and
other facilities for the establishment, maintenance, operation and expansion of nonproﬁt school lunch
programs” (Gunderson, n.d.).

38

must follow federal procurement regulations and bid their products in a way that ensures
open and free competition. In addition, schools must also follow their own state and local
procurement rules. Small purchases have provided a means for circumventing some of
the onerous federal guidelines. For small purchases, schools can use a relatively simple
bidding procedure that short-circuits the formalities associated with large purchases.
Under the small purchase guidelines, schools can make purchasing decisions based on
verbal price quotes from at least two and preferably three vendors. Thus, the small
purchase method gives schools the ability to contact three farmers instead of opening the
bid process to food distributors or other school food service vendors. This method, in
effect, supports geographic preferences. What is considered “small” and “large” varies
from state to state, but must not exceed the federal threshold of $100,000. In Michigan
for example, schools can use the small purchase method for purchases under $19,650
(Michigan Legislature, 2007). In Idaho, the threshold is $25,000 (Idaho State Department
of Education, 2008). Purchases that exceed these thresholds must be bid through a
cumbersome process that involves large amounts of paperwork, sealed bids, and formal
advertisements. In either case, prior to receiving price quotes, schools must deveIOp
criteria on which to evaluate bids. If more than one vendor meets all of the criteria, most
schools in today’s tight ﬁscal climate use the lowest price to justify their ﬁnal selection.
In other words, vendors selling products that are otherwise identical are selected based on
who is able to offer the lowest price. Thus, the federal procurement regulations erect a
structural obstacle for some producers who may not be able to compete with larger and

more efﬁcient distributors.

39

According to the Community Food Security Coalition, a non-proﬁt organization
that is leading farm to school policy efforts at the federal level, the USDA’s position has
“dissuaded many school districts from implementing legally permissible contracting
processes that would facilitate local food purchasing” (Community Food Security
Coalition, 2007). Although the 2002 amendment to the National School Lunch Act
created space for more “creative public procurement” (Morgan & Morley, 2002), it did
not preempt the federal rule against geographic preferences. The contradictory nature of
state policy has produced both political opportunities and challenges for advancing farm
to school program efforts.

In addition to cash reimbursements from the federal government, schools
participating in the NSLP are eligible to receive donated commodity foods valued at
$0.1875 per lunch served (Food and Nutrition Service USDA, 2007a). For every lunch
served, schools receive $0.1875 in entitlement dollars that they can spend on commodity
foods such as raw meat, cheese, and processed foods. In 1995, the USDA entered an
agreement with the Department of Defense (DOD) to supply fresh fruits and vegetables to
schools along with the DoD’s deliveries to military installations (U .S. Department of
Agriculture Food Distribution Programs, n.d.). Through this inter-agency program,
schools have been able to purchase a wider variety of fresh produce than they would
normally be able to procure through the USDA commodity program. In some states,
these products are purchased directly from local farmers and then distributed to schools.
In North Carolina, for example, more than $475,000 of locally grown produce was
distributed to schools in 2006 (North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer

Services, 2008). Participation in the DoD Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (DOD-

40

Fresh) is not mandatory; schools can use 100 percent of their entitlement dollars to
purchase non-produce commodity foods.

Early farm to school initiatives targeted small- and mid-size family farmers with
the overall goal of supporting “agriculture that is more localized and sustainable than
large-scale, chemical intensive, industrial-style agriculture” (Azuma & Fisher, 200125).
Farmers sold their product directly to schools with the hope that eliminating the
middleman would lead to increased proﬁts for farmers and decreased costs for schools.
However, studies and anecdotal reports have repeatedly shown that logistical challenges
(e. g. ordering, delivering, receiving) pose major barriers to integrating locally grown
produce into the school food program (Allen & Guthman, 2006; Azuma & Fisher, 2001;
Berkenkamp, 2006; Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi, Rostant, Moss, & Hamm, 2006).
Furthermore, as stated earlier, school food service sales appear to contribute negligibly to
farmers’ incomes (Joshi & Beery, 2007; Ohmart, 2002). In the remainder of this chapter,
we explore why farmers participate in farm to school programs and the potential of
school food service as a viable market for farmers. We do this through in-depth
interviews with seven farmers participating in farm to school programs located in the

Upper Midwest and Northeast regions of the United States.

Methods

The data presented in this paper are part of a larger study exploring the
opportunities and barriers of seven farm to school programs located in the Upper
Midwest and Northeast regions of the United States from the perspectives of farmers,

school food service professionals, and food distributors. Our investigation was limited to

41

these three stakeholder groups because they are intimately involved with the procurement
and integration of locally grown food into the school food program. The data were
collected through in-depth interviews with each of the research participants as well as
through analysis of related written materials.

Interview participants were identiﬁed through maximum variation sampling to
capture the heterogeneity of farm to school programs (Patton, 2002). We were interested
in learning from the experiences of stakeholders whose efforts reﬂected both the
dominant model for distributing locally grown food to school — farm-direct-to-school —
as well as models that use distributors such as produce wholesalers and shippers. To be
selected, a farm to school program needed to have been in operation for at least two years
and have stakeholders who would be able to articulate the challenges and opportunities to
integrating locally grown produce into the school food program. Given the recent
emergence of farm to school programs, we felt that two years was the minimum length of
time required for stakeholders to be able to articulate the opportunities and challenges
they had encountered while still allowing us to include enough cases to capture the
diversity of programs in our sample. In addition, the programs had to be located in the
Upper Midwest or Northeast regions of the United States, two areas of the country that
are climatologically similar. Given the diversity of school districts, we also selected
programs that were different on characteristics that might inﬂuence their development
such as school district location (rural, suburban, urban), free- and reduced-price meals
status, and school district size.

We began by asking two well-Situated key informants for leads to which school

districts had been integrating locally grown foods into their school food program for at

42

least two years. Eight farm to school programs were identiﬁed. One food service
professional did not return our phone calls requesting participation in this study. The
school food service professionals, farmers, and distributors involved in each of the seven
programs were recruited for and agreed to participate in this study.

Interview data were collected with the intention that they would provide a glimpse
into the day-to-day reality of stakeholders involved in farm to school programs that are
unavailable in the existing scholarly or advocacy literature. The one-on-one interviews
were conducted by the ﬁrst author in the spring of 2006 with a follow-up interview in the
spring of 2007. All interviews were recorded and then transcribed verbatim. The
interviews with farmers lasted between 30 and 90 minutes and most took place in their
homes or ofﬁces, although some questions were asked on tours of their workplaces (e. g.
farms and food packing facilities). These tours were invaluable for providing context to
the farmers’ interview responses.

Menus, request for bid applications, price lists, and other documents were used to
cross-check the interview ﬁndings and to enhance the validity of the results. In addition,
newspaper articles and other non-peer reviewed literature such as grant reports,
handbooks, government documents and newsletters relevant to farm to school programs
were collected and examined. These documents provided additional context for the
individual cases and helped to situate their programs within the broader national farm to
school program effort. The conclusions formed in this paper emerged from our analysis
of semi-structured interviews with seven farmers. From time to time, we supplemented
the data with interviews with school food service professionals and distributors. Before

presenting our ﬁndings, we describe salient characteristics of the farmers. For

43

conﬁdentiality, pseudonyms are used to identify the farmers and all distinguishing

characteristics are veiled to protect their identities.

Results and discussion

A smnmary of farmers’ participation in farm to school programs is shown in
Table 2-1. Three farmers we interviewed supplied food to school food service programs
in the Upper Midwest region of the United States while four were located in the
Northeast. The majority of these farm to school program relationships were initiated by
food service professionals who contacted the farmer to request product and pricing
information. One farmer, David Parker, contacted a nearby school district after learning
about their local food purchasing efforts through a community newspaper. At the time of
the interviews, all except one farmer was supplying school districts with a range of
products including apples, winter squash, tomatoes, and asparagus. George Watts, a full-
time farmer who relies on direct market outlets in the Upper Midwest region, won a bid
to supply a local school district with potatoes but ran out before the school district was
ready to purchase them. Farmers reported that school food service made up a miniscule
percentage—ranging from less than one percent to about four percent — of their total

farm sales by volume and income.

Extending market diversiﬁcation strategies
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose but I believe it’s incredibly important
for farmers to have diversiﬁed marketing outlets and not depend solely on one venue. It’s

the aggregate we’re looking at” (Doug Jensen).

44

 

Table 2-1: Summary of farmers’ participation in farm to school programs

 

 

 

 

 

Farmer7 Region8 Initial farmer involvement and evolution of Percentage
participation of total farm
sales by
volume and
income
Doug Jensen UM Contacted by one school to participate in local 2 %
food education event
Won future bids to sell apples to school district
Currently delivering apples to individual
school buildings
George UM Contacted by school to participate in local food
Watts education event
Won future bids to sell potatoes to school <1 %
district but ran out of potatoes
Did not win future bid to deliver apples
Jeff Smith UM Contacted by school to supply apples to district
No competitive bidding process was followed <1 %

 

 

Currently delivering apples to central location

 

 

 

7 Pseudonyms are used to protect the identity of the farmers.
8 UM = Upper Midwest, NE = Northeast

45

 

 

Table 2-1 (cont’d).

 

Shawn Burns

NE

Contacted by school to supply asparagus to
district

Currently delivering asparagus and other
vegetables in back of personal station wagon to

central location

<1%

 

David Parker

NE

Initiated relationship

Won future bids to sell broccoli to school
district

Currently delivering broccoli to central

location

<1%

 

Ron

Williams

NE

Contacted by school to supply apples to district

Currently delivering apples to central location

<4%

 

 

Alan Moore

 

NE

 

Contacted by school to supply produce to
district
Currently delivering produce to central

location

 

1%

 

All farmers who participated in this study emphasized the importance of

diversifying their market strategies. Although school sales made up a tiny percentage of
their total sales by both volume and income, schools were compatible with the farmers’

overall strategy to spread their risk across many different markets including other AAFNS

46

 

(e.g. farmers’ markets) and more conventional (e.g. processors, wholesalers,
supermarkets) outlets. For example:

“I like to have backup plans, you know. I mean it’s always nice to have

more markets than just one or two. I’ve always had ﬁve or six different

markets. I don’t like to get stuck in one plaCe. That could be devastating if

something happens, you know? If they go bankrupt or whatever” (Ron

Williams).

For four farmers who supplied schools with locally grown apples, the school
market represented a chance to supplement their marketing strategies; the school market
provided an outlet that would allow them to generate a modest income during the
relatively slower-paced winter months when revenue from their other markets was small
or negligible. This was seen as especially important for one farmer who sold most of his
apples to shippers or processors and often had to wait six months to a year for his
payments from these intermediaries.

The quote above also demonstrates that new markets are cultivated in recognition
of the tenuousness of agricultural proﬁtability and the volatile climate that is common
place in farm markets. While all of the farmers had their preferred outlets, they
emphasized that diversiﬁcation was necessary to protect themselves from the vagaries of
the market and nature. For example, if market demand for Gala apples is low, farmers
who have a surplus of Gala apples can sell them fresh to schools for $0.50 per pound
instead of selling them to processors for $0.10 per pound. Similarly, although small fruit
size can mean low returns in the wholesale market, schools typically prefer smaller size
fruit and can potentially return higher prices to farmers. Thus, school food service sales

helped to mitigate some of the economic risks of farming. Other research also suggests

that alternative markets can return higher prices for products that would be classiﬁed as

47

“second class” in more conventional outlets that are governed by the logic and standards
of the global market (V erhaegen & Van Huylenbroeck, 20012447).

All seven farmers we interviewed felt that schools paid them a fair price for their
product. However, this price did not come without‘some cost to personal autonomy. Six
farmers went through a small purchase competitive bidding process and set their prices
through a written or verbal price quote. The competitive bidding process typically took
place well before harvest which meant that farmers had to forecast their yield and their
costs months in advance. Farmers who were awarded a bid were expected to honor their
price quotes throughout the year or risk losing the bid. This had both positive and
negative implications. On the one hand, schools offered farmers insurance on the prices
they would receive for their product. Price security allows farmers to better estimate their
revenues for a given market and therefore makes new ventures less risky (V erhaegen &
Van Huylenbroeck, 2001). On the other, because the prices did not ﬂuctuate with the
market, farmers were not able to capture any gains beyond the agreed upon price if the
market price rose. As one farmer stated:

“The schools want us to bid on these deliveries in August. But we hadn’t

picked apple one at that point. So how many apples are out there? What’s

the value? We didn’t know that. There could’ve been a huge windstorrn

and we’d not have any apples to deliver. Or the value of those apples

could have gone up tremendously” (Doug Parker)

Estimating revenue and expenses was further complicated by the competitive
nature of the process; farmers had to price low enough that they would be able to win the

bid. Since schools are working within tight budget constraints, all other things being

equal, they will choose the lowest-priced vendor. In this way, federal procurement

48

regulations became a way in which schools exerted authority over farmers’ ability to
capture proﬁts and to exercise personal autonomy.

By selling their product direct to schools, farmers were able to eliminate the
middleman and capture a greater share of the ﬁnal retail price. In all cases, the prices the
farmers received were comparable to or higher than prices they received for the same
product through their other market channels (e. g. supermarkets, processors, wholesalers,
farmers’ market). In addition, schools frequently recycled boxes for the farmers to reuse
which, at $1.50 per box, helped to increase their proﬁtability. Other research on the
impact of school food service sales on farmers’ incomes also suggests that schools can
inﬂuence farmers’ proﬁtability through informal ways. For example, Ohmart (2002)
found that although farmers were sometimes asked to give schools price-breaks on their
produce, schools reciprocated by picking up the produce themselves and, as we also
found in this study, by returning the farmers’ packaging to them (Ohmart, 2002).

This ability to appropriate increased value from commodities through alternative
modes of food provisioning is one of the reasons why AAFNS have been adopted by
producers and considered by scholars as a viable alternative to more conventional
markets (Higgins, Dibden, & Cocklin, 2008; Kirwan, 2004; Marsden, Banks, & Bristow,
2000; Watts, Ilbery, & Maye, 2005). However, it is important to note that in AAFNS, it is

“the fact that the product reaches the consumer embedded with

information. . .which enables the consumer to conﬁdently make

connections and associations with the place/space of production. . .The

successful translation of this information allows products to be

differentiated from more anonymous commodities and potentially to

command a premitun price if the encoded or embedded information

provided to consumers is considered valuable” (Marsden, Banks, &
Bristow, 2000:425).

49

Unlike other AAFNS such as certiﬁcation schemes, farmers who sell their product
to schools are not able to capture the full economic potential of AAFNS. Since schools
must go through a competitive bidding process that precludes consideration of
geographic proximity, the embeddedness of production cannot be valorized. In other
words, schools cannot place a monetary value on the localness of the product. Instead, the
farmers we interviewed were able to appropriate increased value from their commodities
by selling their product direct to schools that were willing to help them keep their costs

down.

Structural constrgints of farm to school programs

Although the farmers we spoke with felt that they received fair prices from
schools, the volumes were so tiny that in general, they felt that overall, schools had an
insigniﬁcant impact on their incomes. In addition, they felt that the school market was
limited by the oppositional school year and agriculture production cycle, tight budgets,
and DOD-Fresh, three interrelated variables that contributed to schools’ inability to
purchase larger volumes of locally grown food from farmers. Four of the farmers we
spoke with felt that the potential of farm to school in the Upper Midwest and Northeast
regions of the United States was limited by the mismatch between the school year and
growing season of popular school food service items. For example:

“I think we’re doing about all we can with the schools already. From the

time school starts, we sell them whatever we have. We start with a few

peaches and pears but you know, we go through an awful lot of summer

fruits when they don’t have school. So we’re doing all we can for the

entire school year, just about” (Jeff Smith).

“Schools rotate their menu. So, if I’ve only got two products that they’re
interested in, they’re only gonna buy it when that comes up on the menu

50

and when the kids are in schools, you’ve already missed half the season.

They don’t start until the third or fourth of September. So you only have

September and October, and by November, you’re back to nothing but

storable products” (Shawn Burns).

Schools do have the option of buying storable products such as winter squash
from local farmers. However, foods with little perceived or real demand are unlikely to
be offered in school cafeterias, because schools cannot afford to take the ﬁnancial risk of
turning children off of cafeteria food. Since the growing season of foods that students
prefer and the academic year are oppositional — an intentional and historical artifact —
seasonality is often perceived as a barrier that caps the grth of farm to school programs
(Berkenkamp, 2006; Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi, Rostant, Moss, & Hamm,
2006). Furthermore, while one farmer we interviewed was supplying schools with
butternut squash, many schools do not have the skilled labor or the equipment needed to
prepare such labor intensive foods (Berkenkamp, 2006; Joshi & Beery, 2007).

Several farmers we interviewed felt that DOD-Fresh interfered with their ability to
sell apples to schools. DOD-Fresh was created to provide more fresh fruits and vegetables
to schools. While it has accomplished this goal — schools can purchase up to 874
different types and pack sizes of fruits and vegetables through DOD-Fresh (U .S.
Department of Agriculture Food Distribution Programs, n.d.) —-it also has in some ways,
undermined USDA’S other effort, the Small F arms/School Meals Initiative9. With
increasingly tight budgets, schools buy popular items such as apples through this

DOD/USDA interagency program whenever they become available. Schools use their

entitlement dollars to pay the market price for DOD-Fresh products, and draw from their

 

9 The purpose of the USDA Small Farms/School Meals Initiative is to encourage small farmers to sell fresh
fruits and vegetables to schools and schools to buy this product from small farmers (U .S. Department of
Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, 2000).

51

budget only to pay for storage and transportation costs. At approximately $2 per case for
storage and transportation, the impact of these purchases on the budget is relatively small.

Schools that wish to use their entitlement dollars to purchase fresh fruits and
vegetables must make this decision in the spring prior to the school year in which they
will be purchased by allocating a speciﬁed amount of their dollars towards DOD-Fresh.
Since entitlement dollars are awarded annually and are lost if they are not used within the
year, schools have an econorrric incentive to buy DOD products as they become available.
Information about which products are available through DOD-Fresh is provided to
schools on a weekly basis throughout the year. According to several farmers we spoke
with, DOD-Fresh has negatively impacted farmers’ school sales. For example:

“Well it’s, like I say, the school buys for 3 or 4 or 5 weeks in a row and

then you wouldn’t hear anything for another 3 weeks, you know because

she’s getting these apples from the USDA. It’s like she’ll go in spurts,

she’ll buy for like a month and then I’d say about every month and a half

the USDA comes out with these apples. Like they come out with them in

November, they’ll have them in November, and they just had them here in

February. See, She bought apples from me the beginning of- January and

then She didn’t buy apples again ‘til the ﬁrst of March. Middle of January

and the ﬁrst of March, so that’s 6 weeks, but you know she’s getting her

apples from the USDA in between that period. . .. It isn’t worth it, you

know I told her that when she did it the last time. You know, I had all

these apples and I had to go and sell them. I wasn’t going to put up with

that. She said she wouldn’t do it again then turns around and does it again

in February” (Alan Moore).

DOD-Fresh adds an element of risk to farm to school programs because if farmers
are not able to sell their product to schools, it may have to be sold to processors for less
value. While it is frustrating for farmers to have their school sales interrupted by DOD-
Fresh, without the help of such assistance programs to help school food service

professionals balance their budgets, it is questionable whether the schools would have

had the money to pay farmers fairly for their products. Furthermore, in some states DoD-

52

Fresh facilitates the distribution of locally grown food to schools. At the same time,
schools could choose to spend 100 percent of their commodity entitlement dollars on
non-produce items thereby preserving their relationship with farmers and eliminating this

source of uncertainty altogether.

Beyond short-term economic gains

From a purely economic perspective, school food service sales appear to be a
relatively insigniﬁcant market opportunity for farmers. Although the farmers we spoke
with felt that they received good prices from schools, the volumes were so tiny that they
felt that overall, school purchases had an insigniﬁcant impact on their income. Similar to
other AAFNS recently reported in the literature (Sonnino, 2007), the school market is a
relatively easy diversiﬁcation option that does not require signiﬁcant commercialization
(e. g. cleaning, packaging, storage) or production investment. Thus, for the most part,
farmers were able to “recombine and reconﬁgure” the resources at their disposal (van der
Ploeg & Renting, 20002531).

In addition, for four of the seven farmers we spoke with, their school markets
were conveniently located nearby or en route to their other markets or daily errands.
Although the volumes were small, several farmers received wholesale or retail prices
from schools without incurring the costs associated with delivering large volumes to their
wholesale and retail markets. Given the small volumes, the convenience of the school’s
location was seen as critical to making farm to school programs work from an economic
perspective. For example:

“It’s small orders so you’re not going to go to ﬁve, even three different
places. But it was somewhere close to where I was already going for other

53

reasons, so it was easy to deliver. . .but in terms of doing more of that type
of thing, it’s not something I’m looking to do because it isn’t something
that’s going to ﬁt into what I’m already doing. I’m not into being on the
road delivering a few boxes here and there. . .If it was ﬁve miles that way,
I probably wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t be able to ” (Shawn Burns).

“The biggest problem with the school is there isn’t any volume. . .Say we
did 20 cases to the Petunia City School District this week and I’m doing
100 everyday someplace else. So the volume isn’t there whatsoever. But it
just allows you to extend your market and I have to drive to Petunia to
deliver anyway. It’s not like it’s any process, there’s no extra delivery cost
to me because I’m there with the [supermarket] broccoli anyway” (David
Parker).

Farmers who sold their products to schools that were not conveniently located

built their higher distribution costs into the price of their products. One farmer who grows

more than 15 varieties of apples and who delivers these and other fruit to a school located

30 miles from his farm said that he received a “premium price” from the school, which

was higher than his retail or wholesale prices. In describing how he justiﬁed the price, he

said:

“They’re not tray-packed so we’re saving on packaging. But we select
what they want for size and so I think it’s very justiﬁable to charge them
those kinds of prices. . .You really do have to get a pretty decent price —
really, a premium price to be honest with you, to make it worthwhile.
Otherwise you might as well, frankly for those few apples — that
translates to about ﬁve or six bins of apples when we had ﬁve thousand
bins — you might as well just send ‘em on a [processing] truck even if
you only got half that much for that volume. It wouldn’t be worth it. So
you really do have to get a premium price” (Jeff Smith).

A second farmer also felt that selling his product to schools was economically

feasible even though he had to make multiple small volume deliveries — one or two

cases per school — in order to meet the school district’s needs. In developing the price

for his product, he included direct costs such as labor and fuel as well as transaction costs

linked to selling product to schools and therefore capitalized on the opportunity to

54

generate additional revenue by delivering his product to individual schools within the
district.

The majority of the farmers we interviewed had a long-term view of farm to
school programs and expressed hope that their persistence in pursuing school food
service sales would result in future economic beneﬁts. For example:

“Sometimes, in order to develop a new market. . .you might have to take a

break even or even a Slight loss to get your foot in the door, to show them

what quality you’ve got and what services you can provide. And then next

year, hopefully it’ll grow. And so I guess that’s where we are with it at

this point, where we’re willing to do most anything to try to make the

thing work” (Shawn Burns).

“It’s hardly anything percentage wise. It’s just a way to open doors. In my

transition from big to little, I need to open every door that I can open. And

if that means I can sell them grape tomatoes or cucumber or something in

addition to broccoli, going forward, then that’s wonderful. . .I wouldn’t

worry about volume at this point. . . just because you never know. How do

you know that all of a sudden they don’t decide that they want the goofy

looking green pepper that you grow? You never know” (David Parker).

Thus, farmers were hopeful that by spending time now to develop a customer
there would be future opportunities to sell more products to the schools.

In addition, the farmers felt that farm to school programs were an opportunity to
grow future customers for their product. For some farmers the customers were the parents
of the children, while for others the children themselves were seen as the future eaters of
their product. Since food habits are established in early childhood, several farmers felt
that introducing children to new foods such as asparagus and butternut squash at school

would cultivate their taste for these foods.

“It’s a program I believe in. I think we’re helping cultivate our next generation of
consumers, and that’s why we do it” (Doug Jensen).

55

“We really want to reach these young children to make them future

consumers of apples and future customers of [our farm]. . .That would

probably be the biggest and best reason to do it right there” (Jeff Smith).

Thus, although schools represented only a small percentage of their current
income, as these quotes illustrate, farmers felt that schoOl food service sales were an
opportunity that would yield future beneﬁts not only to their own business but also to the

agriculture industry in general. Ohmart (2002) also notes that indirect sales resulting from

farm to school programs are a potential beneﬁt and source of future income for farmers.

AncillaryI motivations and latent beneﬁts

Although one of the objectives of farm to school programs is to create stable
market opportunities for farmers, at the time of the interviews, schools represented a
largely insigniﬁcant part of the farmers’ total sales by volume and income. Despite this,
the farmers we interviewed had no plans to discontinue their work with schools. The
market potential of schools was overwhelmingly the strongest motivator across all seven
farmers. However, the majority of farmers also expressed ancillary motivators that
described latent social beneﬁts, expressed in terms of children’s dietary habits and their
desire to support the local community, which they hoped would accrue from their current
efforts. Compared to the number of times farmers’ motivation to participate in farm to
school programs was framed around the market potential of school food service, these
ancillary motivators seem insigniﬁcant. Still, it would be inappropriate to minimize their
importance given that they illustrate the full picture of farm to school programs and

provide insight into the complex interplay between the embedding and disembedding

56

forces of AAFNS that others have observed in different contexts (Higgins, Dibden, &
Cocklin, 2008; Hinrichs, 2000; Sonnino, 2007).

Several farmers recognized the signiﬁcance of the steadily increasing numbers of
children who are overweight and associated their participation in farm to school programs
with improving children’s eating habits by introducing children to a wider range of fruits
and vegetables. For example:

“I’m very concerned about the dietary habits that our young kids are
establishing, and I think it’s very critical, particularly in the elementary
grades, that they have exposure to a wide variety of fruits and

vegetables. . .I just don’t accept the fact that kids don’t like fruits and
vegetables. I’m not willing to accept that. I think that with the right
exposure and that sort of thing, they’re willing to try and eat different
things. I mean, all you need to do is have pizza on the menu and that’s all
the kids want to eat. And I don’t buy into that. I think they’re really more
interested and I think if it’s presented to them properly, they’ll eat a lot of
different things” (Doug Jensen).

“1 really believe in the mission — I believe in what the schools are doing.

I believe in this obesity challenge that the country has. I believe that

supporting local is good. I believe that the varieties that we can provide by

growing local are tasty and maybe in some cases more nutritious because

they don’t have to be designed to be trucked and to have a thicker skin and

all this type of thing. So I believe in all this. So, if we didn’t lose our shirt,

I’d probably still do it for awhile just in support of the concept, you know,

to be a player” (Alan Moore).

These farmers’ sentiments align with one of the objectives of farm to school
programs — to bring healthier, fresher foods into the school cafeteria. Their perspectives
converges with those of their school food service counterparts who were motivated to
buy locally grown food because they felt that children liked and ate the fresh fruits and
vegetables grown by these farmers (Izumi, Alaimo, & Hamm, 2008).

Five farmers talked about their desire to support the local community by selling

their product to schools. This was expressed in terms of social responsibility as well as

57

localism based on a “strong sense of symbolic community” (Winter, 2003:31). One
farmer who sells a variety of vegetables to a nearby school district said this about farm to
school programs:

“You will eliminate all the transportation costs so there’s an economic
reason for doing it. But it’s also sort of a community responsibility.
Socially, it makes the most sense because you’re keeping your dollars
where they are instead of exporting your dollars. And so your dollar stays
where it originated and continues to multiply rather than just leaving to
China or wherever Wal-Mart buys from. . .Responsibility might be a strong
word. But just that you’re an integral part of the community that you are
in. That you’re participating in its nurture” (Shawn Burns).

The following quotes illustrate the complexity of localism and how economic
instrumentalism colors and complicates the notion of embeddedness.

“I guess from a philosophical standpoint, it’s always bothered me that we
have all these people within a given area and we raise x amount of stuff
within a given area, but yet most of the stuff they eat in this given area is
brought in” (Alan Moore).

“. . .part of it is just a kind of support or a dedication to the concept
because I felt that there was real merit in trying to get local foods into a
local market. And to helping our agriculture and to see if that couldn’t
help provide more sustainability to our agriculture here in the county
‘cause I feel like the agriculture in the county is a large part of its
economic base. And you know, I feel they needed somebody to help
pursue that...” (George Watts).

“. . .if we look at the bigger picture and sustainability particular to the

[state] apple industry, we want to see more [state] apples sold in [state]. I
mean, roughly right now, 25 percent of the apples consumed in [state] are
grown in [state] and 75 percent are imported from outside the area. So

here’s a market right here in our backyard. . .and food service is a big
component of that” (Doug Jensen).

These quotes illustrate the difﬁculty of dissociating economic instrumentalism

from farmers’ desire to support their local community or economy. While they can all be
explained in terms of the “pursuit of self-interest,” according to Block (1990), the

important point is the degree to which “individual behavior is oriented to economic

58

goals” (Block, 1990254). Thus, in order to accurately portray farmers’ motivations to
participate in farm to school, embeddedness, marketness, and instrumentalism must be

analyzed together.

Conclusion

This paper explored the potential of public procurement of locally grown foods to
provide a stable market for farmers by examining their motivation to participate in farm
to school programs. In addition, our analysis considered the larger institutional, political,
and regulatory context in which these programs are embedded. The ﬁndings contribute to
recent literature on the hybridity of AAFNS, which highlights the tensions between the
embedding and disembedding forces that shape the development of these networks
(Goodman, 2004; Higgins, Dibden, & Cocklin, 2008; Hinrichs, 2000; Sonnino &
Marsden, 2006) as well as the interaction between their “horizontal” (i.e. local context)
and “vertical” dimensions (i.e. political, institutional, and regulatory context) (Higgins,
Dibden, & Cocklin, 2008; Sonnino & Marsden, 20062189; Tregear, Arﬁni, Belletti, &
Marescotti, 2007). The case study method employed means that conclusions drawn are
based on the Speciﬁc experiences of the farm to school programs analyzed and may not
be generalizable to other contexts. Through our analysis of in-depth interviews with
seven farmers participating in farm to school programs in the Upper Midwest and
Northeast regions of the United States, we argue that these farmers sell their products to
schools primarily as a way to extend their economic livelihood strategies. However, the

potential of schools to provide viable market opportunities for farmers is far from clear.

59

Several key issues emerged from this research, which highlight the complexity of farm to
school programs.

In contrast to previous research on farmers’ participation in farm to school
programs which suggests that philosophical rather than practical reasons drive farmers’
participation (Ohmart, 2002), our analysis suggests that the farmers we interviewed were
motivated to sell their product to schools primarily for their market potential. The
economic imperative driving farmers’ participation in farm to school programs is
illustrated by their persistence in pursuing schools as customers despite consistently low
volume sales. Their turn to farm to school programs for personal ﬁnancial gain, even in
the face of such small returns, can be seen in the following comments: “I need to open
every door that I can open,” or “We really want to reach these young children to make
them future customers,” or “I like to have back-up plans. . .I don’t like to get stuck in one
place. That could be devastating if something happens, you know.” For the majority of
the farmers we interviewed, school food service sales made up a miniscule percentage of
their total sales by income. Yet, they had no plans to discontinue their participation in
farm to school programs.

Our ﬁndings support other studies that suggest that the school market has not
been an economic windfall (Ohmart, 2002). The farmers we spoke with did not rely on
their school food service sales to make ends meet. Rather, they only dipped into these
markets as a means to diversify their sales with minimal resource investment. Schools
were considered an easy diversiﬁcation option in part because the adaptation and
opporttmity costs were relatively small. Convenience therefore, was a critical factor in

farmers’ decision to pursue food service sales. This ﬁnding raises questions about which

60

farmers will most likely beneﬁt from farm to school programs. Given small volumes, it
seems unlikely that those farmers who do not have “already paid for” or “multi-purpose”
resources to grow, package, and deliver their product to school food service
speciﬁcations would pursue or ﬁnancially beneﬁt from school food service market
opportunities.

The contradiction between farmers’ motivations and their actions can in part be
explained by the tension between farmers’ desire for autonomy and economic
proﬁtability. Like other detours identiﬁed by Mooney (1988), farm to school programs
allow farmers to avoid proletarianization and remain in agriculture; by entering into
relations with schools, farmers give up some of their autonomy when they are forced to
work within the structural constraints of school food service (e.g. school year calendar,
lack of material resources, procurement regulations). However, as our analysis shows,
unlike tenancy, part-time farming, entering into contract relations, or taking on more
debt, participating in farm to school programs Offered farmers latent social beneﬁts that
factored into their decision to sell their product to schools even given the miniscule
market size. Research on the differential role of embeddedness in delaying or preventing
proletarianization is needed.

Our ﬁndings also highlight the complexity of farm to school programs and the
need to better understand the interaction between the horizontal and vertical dimensions
of AAFNS (Sonnino & Marsden, 2006:189). AS the analysis shows, relationships
between farmers and food service professionals were structured by rules, regulations, and

routines which were largely shaped by the tight ﬁscal climate of school food service.

61

Farm to school program advocates have been engaged in various efforts to
address some of the structural barriers that limit the program’s market potential. For
example, policy efforts to increase procurement of locally grown foods in K-12 public
schools have focused on increasing ﬂexibility for schools to use geographic preferences,
often interpreted in terms of state boundaries, when buying food. In Kentucky, legislation
states that when price and quality are equal, Kentucky-grown products must be purchased
(Kentucky Legislature, 2006). And in Massachusetts, the state legislature passed a bill
that allows for a ten percent price preference above the lowest bid for Massachusetts-
grown products (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2006). These state legislative actions
however do not preempt the federal rule against geographic preferences and are, for the
time being, more symbolic than signiﬁcant. The policy focus on allowing schools to use
geographic preferences when buying food also diverts attention away from the lack of
material resources that limits the potential of farm to school programs. For example, if
policy changes enable farmers to use their local assets as a comparative advantage, which
schools will open their doors to farmers? Will schools be able to pay the additional cost?
If so, what will be the trade-off? As gate keepers of food service procurement, school
food service professionals decide which farmers will be invited to participate in the
competitive bidding process and how limited resources will be allocated.

Policy changes that focus on geographic preferences also may inadvertently
undermine farmers’ opportunity to beneﬁt from farm to school programs. The tendency
for local institutions to loosely deﬁne attributes such as “local” has been shown by others
to be motivated by a desire to create opportunities for as many actors as possible

(Tregear, Arﬁni, Belletti, & Marescotti, 2007). As various scholars have warned, as

62

AAFNS like farm to school programs become economically signiﬁcant, there is “potential
for the appropriation of the economic beneﬁts associated with the embeddedness of
production. . .by dominant actors within the ‘conventional’ agr[i]food system, typiﬁed by
the ‘conventionalisation’ of organic food production” (Kirwan, 2004:398). Modifying the
meaning of “local” to include non-economic values such as equitable payments to
farmers, can discourage the participation of food service actors whose agendas conﬂict
with farm to school program advocates’ efforts to create viable markets for small- and
mid-size family farmers. More research is needed to understand what role the state could
and does play in disembedding local production from consumption.

The issue of procurement of locally grown foods in K-12 public schools in the
United States provides a unique case for increasing our understanding of the potential
impact of AAFNS on farmers’ incomes. The perspectives of the farmers in this study
highlight the tensions between marketness, instrumentalism, and embeddedness that
motivate their participation in farm to school programs. By situating their experiences
within the larger political, institutional, and regulatory context of farm to school
programs, this study provides insight into their potential to create stable market
opportunities for farmers. Although school food service is promoted as an important
market opportunity for farmers, the beneﬁts have mostly been assumed. A nuanced
understanding of the motives and needs of farmers and school foods service professionals

will be critical to the long-term success of farm to school programs.

63

CHAPTER THREE:

PERSPECTIVES OF SCHOOL FOOD SERVICE PROFESSIONALS

To rehumanize consumption, reintegrate food into the culture, and turn
producers and eaters into allies, people will have to acknowledge and act
on their responsibility to the common good and the need to balance it with

self-interest.
«Kate Clancy (1997)

Introduction

Farm to school programs are among the many efforts across the country aimed at
improving the quality of school meals. These programs include a range of activities
designed to connect children with local agriculture such as harvest festivals, ﬁeld trips to
farms, and educational visits from farmers. Integrating locally grown foods into the
cafeteria has been described as the “cornerstone” of farm to school programs (Allen &
Guthman, 200629). While the practice of buying farm-fresh foods for the school food
program is not new — fresh produce was purchased at local terminal markets before
refrigerated boxcars were routinely used to ship perishable food across the country
(Smedley, 1920) — the nationwide effort to systematically connect schools with local
agriculture did not begin until the mid-19908. According to advocates, these programs are
a strategy to address the increasing prevalence of childhood overweight and lack of
proﬁtable and stable market opportunities for farmers (Azuma & Fisher, 2001).

Farm to school programs have the potential to improve children’s health through
increased access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Health professionals agree that schools

can and should play a key role in improving children’s dietary habits (Koplan, Liverman,

64

& Kraak, 2005; Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006). In addition to their ability to reach
the majority of the nation’s youth, schools are uniquely positioned to promote healthful
eating because children eat a large share of their daily food while they are at school
(O'Toole, Anderson, Miller, & Guthrie, 2007; Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006).
Although the nutritional quality of school meals has improved substantially over the past
decade, researchers say the overall school food environment continues to need
improvement (O'Toole, Anderson, Miller, & Guthrie, 2007; Story, Kaphingst, & French,
2006). However, budget pressures have complicated schools’ efforts to improve the
quality of their food programs. School food service is funded primarily by federal
subsidies based on the number of meals served. Since participation in the school food
program is not mandatory, schools need to serve as many meals as possible in order to
generate the revenue needed for ﬁnancial solvency. According to some researchers, the
severe budget constraints of school food service generally have forced many schools to
serve popular, but sometimes nutritionally inadequate foods that are appealing to children
(Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006).

Farm to school program advocates assert that connecting children with local
agriculture can play an important role in fostering better health among students without
posing a burden on school food service budgets (Azuma & Fisher, 2001). According to
one report, buying produce directly from farmers allows schools to buy “fresher -— and
possible more nutritious — food” than they can purchase through their broadline
distributor10 (also referred to as full distributor, prime vendor, or long-distance supplier)

while eliminating some of the transportation and handling costs associated with shipping

 

1° Broadline distributors are distributors that carry almost all of the food, supply, and equipment items
necessary to operate a food service kitchen.

65

food across long distances (Tropp & Olowolayemo, 200026). To the extent that farm-
fresh produce supplements school meals or displaces high-fat, high sugar competitive
foods they have the potential to improve children’s diets.

As the percentage of children who are overweight reaches epidemic levels,
another trend — one that has dramatically changed our agriculture and food system11 —
is taking place. In less than one hundred years, agriculture in the United States has been
transformed from one of small, family owned and operated farms that produced a
diversity of commodities to one in which a handful of large, industrial-scale, specialized
producers control the bulk of the food produced in this country (Lyson, 2004). This trend
toward concentration and consolidation in food production is reﬂected throughout what
has become a global agrifood system (Hendrickson & Heffeman, 1999). These structural
changes have destabilized markets for farmers, especially those who are too big to take
advantage of direct market opportunities such as farmers’ markets but too small to
compete in the global market (Kirschenmann, Stevenson, Buttel, Lyson, & Duffy, 2004).
Scholars across diverse disciplines have argued that these agrifood system trends threaten
the public’s health as well as our environment and rural communities (Clancy, 1997;
Gussow, 2006; Kirschenmann, Stevenson, Buttel, Lyson, & Duffy, 2004). Farm to school
program advocates argue that school food service represents a substantial and stable
market for small- and mid-size family farmers who could sell their product directly to
schools (Azuma & Fisher, 2001).

Farm to school programs have garnered the support of diverse groups of
individuals including nutrition educators, some of whom have long promoted diets that

reﬂect a more sustainable food system (Clancy, 1997; Feenstra, 1997; Gussow, 1999;

 

” Hereafter, we abbreviate the food and agriculture system “agrifood system.”

66

Gussow, 2006; Gussow & Clancy, 1986; Hamm & Bellows, 2003; Wilkins, 2005). For
example, in 1981, concern for farmland loss and increasing dependence on food shipped
from across the country or around the globe led members of the Society for Nutrition
Education to adopt a series of resolutions that focused On stemming farmland loss and
increasing the production and consumption Of foods grown closer to home (Gussow,
1999). Five years later, some Of these ideas were linked to the Dietary Guidelines and
published in the Journal of Nutrition Education (Gussow & Clancy, 1986). Various
scholars have argued strongly that closer proximity between producers and consumers
may lead to more sustainable food systems (Gussow, 2006; Kloppenburg, Hendrickson,
& Stevenson, 1996). According to Gussow (2006219)

“Consumers who were entirely isolated from the origins of their food

could not see how their demands — for fatty meats, for exotic foods, for

out of season produce — were threatening the agricultural resource base.

If only they could see what went into the production of their food —

which might happen. . .if food production were made more local — eaters

might help save farmers and the planet.”

Farm to school programs have emerged as one effort that holds the potential to improve
children’s health while simultaneously moving us in the direction of a more sustainable
food system that would equitably nourish people today and well into the future.

Food service professionals across the country have Shown a high degree Of
interest in farm tO school programs (Izumi, Rostant, Moss, & Hamm, 2006; National
Farm to School Program, 2007). However, distributing food from farm to school has been
identiﬁed as one Of the key barriers to integrating farm-fresh fruits and vegetables into
the cafeteria (Berkenkamp, 2006; Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi, Rostant, Moss, &

Hamm, 2006). Buying food directly from multiple farmers departs substantially from

traditional school food procurement, which typically involves buying food from one or

67

two broadline distributors while patronizing a limited number of specialty wholesalers for
products such as milk, bread, and produce (Lewi & Coppess, 2007). Studies have shown
that food service professionals would be more likely to buy locally grown foods if they
were available through their current food distributors (Berkenkamp, 2006; Izumi,
Rostant, Moss, & Hamm, 2006). Food service professionals work under intense time and
budget constraints and prefer buying food from distributors that can Offer standardized
delivery, streamlined ordering and billing, and mitigation of various quality control and
liability issues (Berkenkamp, 2006). As a result, the farm-direct-tO-school model has
evolved to include various intermediaries including alternative distributors Operated by
non-proﬁt organizations and conventional distributors that already supply school food
service operations.

Nationwide support for farm to school programs is increasing. The National Farm
to School Network, a portal for information about farm to school programs across the
nation and technical assistance resource for local- and state-level efforts, estimates that
more than 1,900 farm to school programs —— up from 400 in 2005 — across the country
are connecting their students with local agriculture either through the cafeteria or the
classroom (National Farm to School Network, n.d.). Data remain scarce on how many
food service professionals have integrated locally grown foods into their cafeterias.
However, recent state legislative actions suggest strong support for farm to school
programs. For example, when purchasing agricultural products in Kentucky, state
agencies are encouraged to purchase Kentucky-grown product when price and quality are
equal (Kentucky Legislature, 2006). And in Massachusetts, the state legislature recently

passed a bill that allows for a ten percent price preference above the lowest bid for

68

Massachusetts-grown products (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2006). While these
pieces of legislation do not preempt federal procurement regulations that prohibit
geographic preferences when purchasing food, they are symbolic representations of the
broad support that advocates have garnered for farm to school programs. Given the high
level Of interest in and rapid adoption of such programs across the country, an in-depth
understanding of their Opportunities and challenges is critical for enabling advocates to
achieve their goals — providing viable market opportunities for farmers and improving
children’s health — and to minimize unintended or potentially contradictory outcomes.
The purpose Of this study was to explore why food service professionals, farmers,
and food distributors participate in farm to school programs and how they characterize
the Opportunities and challenges to local school food procurement. Our research focused
on institutional sales because this dimension of farm to school programs appears to hold
the greatest short- and long-term potential to improve children’s diets and farmers’
incomes. Although several surveys of food service professionals’ perceptions Of farm to
school programs have been conducted, they do not necessarily capture the perspectives of
those individuals who have experience integrating locally grown food into their
cafeterias. For example, only 10 percent Of the food service professionals who responded
to a Michigan farm to school survey reported having purchased food directly from a
farmer within the prior year (Izumi, Rostant, MOSS, & Hamm, 2006). Similarly, anecdotal
reports, success stories, and how-to manuals that focus on integrating locally-grown
foods into the cafeteria have largely been generated by academics and advocates of farm
to school programs versus those who are directly involved in school food procurement.

By using qualitative methods, this study sought to add depth to our understanding Of farm

69

to school programs by capturing and communicating the perspectives of food service

professionals, farmers, and food distributors, three stakeholder groups who are directly
involved in efforts to integrate locally grown food into the cafeteria. This paper focuses
on the motivations of food service professionals; reports on the perspectives Of farmers

and distributors will be presented elsewhere.

Methods

Research participants were recruited from seven farm to school programs in the
Upper Midwest and Northeast regions of the United States between January and April
2006. Seven fOOd service professionals, seven farmers, and four food distributors
participated in the study. Farm to school programs were selected through maximum
variation sampling, a purposeful sampling technique aimed at capturing the central
themes that emerge from diverse cases (Patton, 2002). This was the most appropriate
technique because we were interested in common patterns across farm to school
programs. Given the site speciﬁcity of farm to school prOgrarns, common themes are of
particular interest in describing their core experiences. This nonrandom sampling
technique also was appropriate because the purpose of our study was to understand the
complexity of individual farm to school programs and not to generalize our ﬁndings. The
Upper Midwest and Northeast regions Of the United States were selected as the
geographic boundaries of our study to capture a variety Of distribution strategies for local
food procurement, within an area that is climatologically similar. States in which the
programs are located are not revealed to protect the identities of the research participants.

TO maximize the variation of farm to school programs in our study, we constructed a

70

matrix of programs that varied on school district and farm to school program
characteristics. Eight programs were identiﬁed by key informants who were intimately
familiar with farm to school programs in their respective regions. One food service
professional did not return our phone calls requesting participation in this study. Only
those school districts that had been integrating locally grown foods into their school food
programs as a regular part of their food procurement routine for at least two years were
included in our sample, a length of time we felt would allow stakeholders tO articulate the
opportunities and challenges to local school food procurement. Food service
professionals at seven school districts were invited to participate in our study as were the
farmers and food distributors they identiﬁed as sources for locally grown food.

In—depth interviews were used as the primary data collection strategy in order to
adequately capture the nature of participants’ experiences. Procurement documents and
menus also were collected and examined in order to cross-check ﬁndings and enhance
validity Of the results. In addition, newsletters, handbooks, government reports, and other
such documents were used to provide additional context for the individual cases and to
situate each program within the broader national farm to school program effort.

Each research participant was interviewed twice by the ﬁrst author. The ﬁrst
interview was conducted between January and April 2006 and a follow-up interview was
conducted between March and April 2007. The purpose of the ﬁrst interview was two-
fold. First, we wanted to gain insight into the day-to-day reality Of participants that is
unavailable in the existing literature. Second, we wanted to explore the nature Of
participants’ involvement in their respective farm to school program. For food service

professionals, we were interested in why they began buying locally grown foods and how

71

their efforts have evolved over time. In addition, we were interested in how they
characterized the opportunities and challenges to local school food procurement. The
purpose of the second interview was to follow-up on themes, concepts, and processes that
emerged during the ﬁrst interview and to investigate the ﬁt Of farm to school programs
within the participants’ overall school food service program.

Table 3-1 provides examples Of questions related to this manuscript. All
interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. A semi-structured interview
guide was used to ensure that all questions that were important to the research were
covered and to accommodate the limited amount Of time with each of the participants.
The interview guide was an evolving document and was revised regularly to reﬂect new
themes that emerged from the interviews. Although an interview guide was used to
maintain control of the interview, the order in which questions were asked and the ﬂow
of the interview were ﬂexible. Probes and follow-up question were asked to elicit depth

of information and to follow-up on leads initiated by the participants. The interviews with

 

Table 3-]: Selected sample of questions for food service professional interviews

 

Can you tell me about your farm to school program? How did it get started? How has it

changed over the years?

 

What are the goals Of your food service program? How does farm to school ﬁt into your

 

goals?

 

I What motivates you to buy locally grown foods?

 

What are the challenges, if any, to buying locally grown foods?

 

 

 

72

food service professionals lasted between 60 and 90 minutes and took place in their
Ofﬁces although some questions were asked on tours of their food service operation.
These tours were invaluable for providing context to the participants’ interview
responses.

This study was approved through the Human Research Protection Program at
Michigan State University (#X05-886). For conﬁdentiality, pseudonyms are used to
identify the food service professionals and all distinguishing characteristics are veiled to
protect their identities. The data were analyzed in two stages. In the early stages of the
study, while data were still being collected, memos were written after each data collection.
The purpose of the memos was to systematically summarize the interview immediately
after a contact and to capture early interpretations (Miles & Huberman, 1994). In addition,
emerging themes and concepts were identiﬁed and codes were created. The codes were
deﬁned operationally and organized into a code dictionary that included the code name,
deﬁnition, rule, and example for when each code should be applied.- Interview transcripts
were coded by the ﬁrst author and coding was cross-checked by another researcher. Coding
was an iterative process. New codes progressively emerged during the analysis and those
that were no longer appropriate were discarded while others were broken down into sub-
codes or reﬁned. When major code changes were made, data that had already been coded
were recoded with a revised dictionary.

After all of the interviews were coded a series Of displays for drawing and verifying
conclusions about the data were developed. Displays allow researchers to reduce their data
and systematically organize answers to their research questions (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

Displays increase the chance of drawing and verifying valid conclusions because they are

73

arranged coherently to allow for careful comparisons within and across cases (Miles &
Huberman, 1994). Codes related to food service professionals’ motivations for buying
locally grown food were identiﬁed and passages associated with these codes were extracted
from each interview transcript. Codes and passages were compared across the seven food
service professionals and organized into a conceptually clustered matrix that included
motivations (columns) and school food service professionals (rows). For each cell, a
quotation or summary phrase was ﬁrst entered to indicate the relevance of the motivation
for each food service professional. The data in the display was further reduced by using
acronyms to indicate themes. Conclusions were drawn about each case and across cases by
reading down the columns and across rows. Transcribed interviews and memos were used
to verify our conclusions. Atlas.ti 5.2 (Atlas.ti 5.2, Scientiﬁc Software Development
GmbH, Berlin), a qualitative data analysis software package, was used to code the data,

organize memos, and note patterns and themes. Data displays were created by hand.

Results

Sample site and program characteristics are shown in Table 3-2. The farm to
school programs were located in rural, urban, and suburban districts and student
population ranged from about 2,300 to more than 40,000 students. The free— and reduced-
price lunch eligibility rates Of the school districts ranged from about 30 to more than 85
percent. Six of the school districts had a warehouse or central kitchen where food could
be received. One food service professional did not have central receiving and required

farmers to deliver food tO more than 15 individual school buildings.

74

 

Table 3-2: Selected Farm to School Program Characteristics

 

 

 

 

 

School Region12 Site13 Student Free and Central Distribution
District population reduced receiving strategy
lunch
participation
rate
Tulip Public UM R 11,136 30 NO F arm -—>
Schools School
Goosefoot UM U 23,295 81 Yes Wholesaler
Central —9 School
School
District
Gilliﬂower UM R 3,451 38 Yes Farm —r
Central School
School
District

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'2 UM = Upper Midwest, NE = Northeast

'3 R = rural, S = suburban, U = urban

75

 

 

Table 3-2 (cont’d).

 

 

 

 

 

Petunia NE 2,534 62 Yes Farm —»
Public School
School
District
Osmunda NE 2,375 36 Yes Farm —->
Community School
Schools Distributor
—* School
Jonquil NE 2,597 52 Yes Farm —>
Public School
Schools Distributor
—> School
Bellﬂower NE 41,089 87 Yes Wholesaler
City School —* School
District Distributor
--> School

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three food service professionals indicated that they purchased locally grown food

directly from farmers. Four food service professionals purchased locally grown food

 

through regionally-based mid-tier distributors that buy and sell food on a more regional
level as opposed to broadline distributors that operate at a more national level. Two
categories of regionally-based mid-tier distributors were identiﬁed: (I) produce
wholesalers, referred to here as “wholesaler” and (2) distributors that sell produce plus
other perishables, referred to here as “distributor.” The two school districts with
enrollment over 20,000 purchased apples through wholesalers. Three school districts
purchased locally grown fOOd through distributors. Two food service professionals used a
combination of strategies to purchase locally grown food that included both farmers and
wholesalers or distributors.

Three major themes related to why food service professionals participate in farm
to school programs emerged from our analysis. In the participants’ own words: (1) “the

students like it,” (2) “the price is right,” and (3) “we’re helping our local farmer”.

The students lil_<e_it

The importance Of Offering children nutritious foods that they will eat was
emphasized by all of the food service professionals we spoke with. In addition to their
need tO comply with federal and local nutrition guidelines, the food service professionals
talked about their goals to “encourage healthier choices at schools,” to provide children
with the “freshest possible foods,” and to “provide the best quality and nutritious foods
we can get to the kids we serve.” Six Of the seven food service professionals emphasized
that children liked the locally grown foods that were added to the menu and the majority
(n = 4) said that their students ate more ﬁ'uits and vegetables when these were sourced

from farmers and wholesalers. One food service professional who began buying apples

77

and potatoes from local farmers in 2004 under pressure from parents extended her local
food purchases tO include butternut squash, asparagus, and a variety of fresh ﬁ'uits after
she witnessed the positive response from the children. She explained:

“It used to be that I would stand around the cafeteria and when we would

serve like a Red Delicious apple, kids would put them on their plates

because they were so shiny and pretty but then they would take one bite

and the rest would go in the garbage. And that is not happening anymore.

The kids are actually eating their apples, and if the kids aren’t eating their

apples at lunchtime they’re taking them with them, which, honestly, I’d

never seen before. That kind of thing really prompts you, encourages you,

to want to sell [local] stuff” (Tulip Public Schools, Enrollment: 11,136).

Through analysis of themes and interrelationship of codes, it was found that
within this broad category Of “students like it,” there were three interconnected
subcategories that related to this motivation: (1) quality, (2) inﬂuence Of food service
staff, and (2) relationships with farmers. These subcategories mediated the connection
between students’ food preferences and locally grown food.
Quality. The high quality Of product food service professionals were able to source from
farmers and wholesalers was a common theme in the interviews. Six out Of the seven
food service professionals we interviewed compared the products they purchased from a
farmer or wholesaler to those purchased through their broadline distributor and indicated
that the former were Often higher in quality. Freshness Of product and ﬂavor were used as
indicators of quality.

Food that traveled long distances was seen as less fresh and of inferior quality
than food that was locally grown. Whereas their broadline distributor purchased food
from across the country, the food service professionals characterized locally grown food

as being “picked yesterday” (Gilliﬂower Central School District, Enrollment: 3,451). One

food service professional in the Northeast who had been buying a variety Of fruits and

78

vegetables from a farmer located less than ten miles from her centralized kitchen for
more than ten years, described her experience:
“Imagine, the pinkish hard tomato you can buy today, against [farmer’s]
luscious, juicy, warm from the earth, picked yesterday tomatoes. It’s the
quality Of the food that really is the greatest beneﬁt” (Osmunda

Community Schools, Enrollment 2,337).

Another food service professional also compared the quality of food purchased
from a nearby farmer with what she would be able to buy from her broadline distributor.

“The cauliﬂower coming Off of [broadline distributor] is very consistent

sized, kind Of small, there’s no purple lines going through it or anything. It

doesn’t quite have the same color or size or yield as [farmer] and Obvious

to the palate, it’s not as fresh. I mean, you could taste a difference between

something that’s traveled and something that hasn’t” (Jonquil Public

Schools, Enrollment: 2,597).

Other food service professionals also used ﬂavor as an indicator of quality that
differentiated the food they bought from farmers and wholesalers from their broadline
distributors. Flavor was tightly tied to the larger variety of product that was available
through farmers and wholesalers. For example:

“Kids eat more of these apples. Instead of getting a red Washington apple

all the time they were getting different colors, different ﬂavors,

textures. . .a variety. And I think that makes a difference.”

(Goosefoot Central School District, Enrollment: 23, 295)

The Washington Red Delicious apple, a uniformly red apple that has become the
quintessential school food service variety, was frequently evoked by the food service
professionals to illustrate the quality difference between buying food from a farmer or
wholesaler versus a broadline distributor. Larger distributors typically carry limited

varieties of a product such as apples due to their need to quickly turnover their products.

Therefore, only those apple varieties with high enough demand, such as the Red

79

Delicious, are regularly stocked. Although Red Delicious apples are attractive, shiny (due
to a vegetable wax coating), small in size (which students tend to prefer), and tend to be
the most affordable apple variety that most broadline distributors carry, they are not the
most ﬂavorful apple. Broadline distributors do carry other popular and more ﬂavorful
varieties but they are Often tOO expensive or too big for food service professionals who
are buying apples for children. The food service professionals we interviewed purchased
a wide variety of apples from farmers and wholesalers including Gala and Empire apples,
both which are varieties valued for their sweet ﬂavor, small size, and crunchy texture.
Inﬂuence of school staff. The majority of the food service professionals (11 = 5) felt that
staff played an important role in motivating students to try the locally grown foods on the
menu. At Goosefoot Central School District, the addition of locally grown apples in the
cafeteria generated excitement among teachers who took their students on ﬁeld trips to
local apple orchards and allowed them to use school food to reinforce their classroom
lessons. These teachers encouraged their students to eat the locally grown apples. For
example:

“It actually instilled some excitement with the staff. Some of our teachers

were proud to be serving [state] apples. A lot of our teachers go to apple

orchards so it was neat to have them served for lunch [. . .] so we had that

link, cafeteria, classroom, ﬁeld trip. 1 think they might have said

something to the kids and then the kids get a little more attention so

they’re like huh, maybe I should eat this apple instead of just letting it sit

on the tray” (Goosefoot Central School District, Enrollment: 23,295).

One food service professional, a director of an urban school district with more
than 60 schools, introduced blue potatoes to her menu and felt that staff encouragement

made the difference in terms of which students were willing to try them. Those who tried

them generally liked them.

80

“In the [school], they really pushed [blue potatoes] from the instructional

end of it. And the teachers were bringing in blue potato chips to show that

this is the potato and then it becomes this and... try them. And truly, you

really can’t tell the difference [in taste]. But just getting the kids to the

point where they would try them, we needed the help of the instructional

staff. SO when we did, it worked. I didn’t put them in all of the buildings

and another manager said ‘It did not go here at all. They wouldn’t even

touch them.’ But we didn’t have the instructional staff on board. . .So, that

plays a role” (Bellﬂower City School District, Enrollment: 41 ,089).
Five food service professionals felt that food service staff support for their farm to school
program effort inﬂuenced students’ consumption of locally grown foods. The staff at four
Of the school districts began supporting the farmers who delivered product to their school
districts with orders for their own personal consumption. At Osmunda Community
Schools (Enrollment, 2,337), the food service professional described her staff as being
proud to be able to serve high quality food and that this pride had a “trickle down effect”
onto the students.
Relationships with farmers. Five of the farm to school programs we studied had formed
direct relationships between the farmer and the school and four talked about the
importance Of this connection. This relationship gave food “the local feel” (Tulip Public
Schools, Enrollment: 11, 136) that these food service professionals felt inﬂuenced
students’ consumption of these foods and their staffs support for the program. The
connection between students and farmers was made informally when farmers dropped off
their product and formally through farmer visits to the cafeteria, point Of sale signs and
placards in the cafeteria, announcements in school newsletters, and menu symbols
denoting which products came from local sources. At Tulip Public Schools, the farmer

made weekly visits to individual school buildings to deliver the product. During his

visits, he “walked the halls” to help students understand that the apples served in the

81

cafeteria were grown and delivered by a farmer. According to the food service
professional, this connection was critical to students’ preference for these foods.

“I think the fact that [children] know that it’s local and they know where it

came from, and they know it’s from [farmer], the apple guy, or whoever it

is — I think that does play a big role in the participation [in school lunch].

Because if you don’t market it as local, I don’t think the kids — I think

they would take it or not take it just like they did any other food item and

not even think twice about it [. . .] it’s hard to say that participation rates go

up just because Of local foods, but it’s for sure a fact that if you are

promoting something local and kids know where the food came from, and

they know that it tastes good, they will take more Of it” (Tulip Public

Schools, Enrollment: 11, 136).

Similarly, one food service professional who has been buying food from a nearby
farmer for ten years, tied locally grown food to “cool food” (Jonquil Public Schools,
Enrollment: 2,597). The relationship between the farmer and students turned the farmers’
fruits and vegetables into cool foods. She explained:

“The kids just love [farmer]. He’s one of the coolest guys in the world.

And if we’re able to do that, it becomes a cool food and kids like cool

foods, you know. They don’t want things that aren’t cool” (Jonquil Public

Schools, Enrollment: 2,597). ‘

Thus, the symbolic meaning of the food was seen as an important factor in students’ food

choices.

The price is right

All seven Of the food service professionals were motivated to continue buying
food from their farmers and wholesalers because these products were priced
competitively with, and were often lower than, comparable products carried by their
broadline distributor. This price differential, even when small, was seen as a beneﬁt of

buying locally grown food. All seven food service professionals talked explicitly about

82

the advantages of shortened supply chains. When food is purchased through a broadline
distributor, the transportation and handling costs for each Of the middlemen (e. g. brokers,
wholesalers, shippers) is included in the price. Shortening the supply chain through farm
direct purchases helped food service professionals save money on typical school food
items such as apples and made expensive items such as asparagus, more affordable. For
example:

“I wouldn’t order asparagus from [broadline distributor] because that

would be too expensive. And I think what I paid for [farmer’s] asparagus

last year was $1.48 a pound. The cheapest I’ve ever seen it at

[supermarket] is $1.99 a pound. SO, it was still an expensive vegetable to

have, but we made sure every child had one piece. I mean, just to try it

because most Of them have never [tried it]” (Petunia Public School

District, Enrollment: 2,534).

In addition to savings associated with shortened supply chains, lower prices were
inﬂuenced by product speciﬁcations. Whereas broadline distributors must use
standardized product speciﬁcations to serve their broad customer base, the farmers and
wholesalers interviewed had more ﬂexibility. Due to the nature of their Operation,
broadline distributors only carry products that meet US. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) standards for Extra Fancy and Fancy grades and their own internal standards of
quality. In addition, the product must be packaged in boxes with cardboard trays and
foam liners, all Of which adds to the ﬁnal price. The food service professional at
Osmunda Community Schools explained that schools do not necessarily need the extra
services provided by broadline distributors. For example, since the apples are not

traveling far and handling is minimal, they can be packed loose in a box, saving $2.00 per

case. These boxes were Often returned to the farmer, which helped to keep prices low and

83

contributed to farmers’ proﬁts. In addition, depending on how the food will be used, a
“perfect” product is not always needed. She said:

“I think schools are great markets for food that shouldn’t be in retail. I will
take the outsize apples. [Farmer] will bring me bushels of apples, the tiny
ones, and that’s great for our kindergarteners, our ﬁrst grades. We sort
them out and the big ones children here [middle school] love so I think
we’re a great market for Off-size. We don’t need the perfect size apple.
That’s great for retail, that’s what sells. But in schools, we can take the
carrots that have “s” in them because we’ll clean them, we’ll take the skin
Off and then we’ll chop them up and it doesn’t matter to us. They’ll end up
in the homemade soup that day, or on top Of salad. SO for us, we’re a good
market and I don’t think farmers realize that” (Osmunda Community
Schools, Enrollment: 2,337).

A second food service professional ﬁrrther illustrated the price advantage of
ﬂexible speciﬁcations with her experience of buying broccoli directly from a farmer. She
explained:

“With the farmer, I could specify what I wanted. I said I didn’t want a

whole lot of stalk because I wasn’t buying it by the pound I was buying it

by the crate, so he cut that down for me [. . .] And then I didn’t want a twist

tie on it. You know how broccoli comes like that? And I didn’t want that

because that would have been an extra labor step for me. SO I could

specify that, which was a pretty good thing. But he asked me about that. I

wouldn’t have thought of that. That wasn’t my idea, it was his idea. So

that was pretty good because you could specify pretty much what you

wanted” (Petunia Public School District, Enrollment: 2,534).

Direct relationships with farmers and wholesalers also allowed food service
professionals to take advantage of products that farmers needed to sell quickly. Produce
is perishable and when farmers were not able to sell it through their other market outlets
they sold it to schools, directly or indirectly through a wholesaler, for a low price. This
strategy, also known as opportunity buying, allowed food service professionals to buy

foods that are not typically Offered in the cafeteria such as butternut squash, Asian pears,

and blue potatoes, at below market value, and gave farmers a market for their product.

84

Two food service professionals found that at times, prices for products such as
tomatoes were higher when purchased directly from a farmer than through their broadline
distributor. However, because they were able to get a higher yield with their farmer’s
product, the price per serving was lower than a comparable product purchased through
their broadline distributor. The higher yield was attributed to the high quality Of the
product which resulted in less waste. This tactic, which one food service professional
called “yield testing” or “creative purchasing” (Jonquil Public Schools, Enrollment:
2,597) was used to justify purchasing directly from a farmer. “Creative purchasing”
provided a way for these food service professionals to follow procurement regulations,

which placed priority on price, while still supporting their local communities.

We’re helping our local farmers

The ﬁnal theme that emerged from our analysis suggests that the food service
professionals interviewed were motivated to participate in farm to school programs
because they hoped they were “helping our local farmers” (Bellﬂower City School
District, Enrollment: 41,089). All but one food service professional talked explicitly
about their farm to school program as a way to connect students to the source of their
food —- where it was grown and the farmer who grew it -— and the importance of
supporting the local community. However, food service professionals’ desire to support
local farmers went beyond using their procurement decisions as an educational tool. They
expressed genuine concern about farmers’ livelihood, which at times, was based on
sympathy or empathy. For example:

“I just get a really good feeling. When I see [farmer] and just knowing that
we’re helping a local guy out. I mean, he’s just trying to make it just like

85

anyone else. And it’s nice to know we’re helping him. And I guess I just

get a good feeling about that” (Gilliﬂower Central School District,

Enrollment: 3 ,451).

The food service professionals’ regard for farmers is evident in this comment as
well as others expressed throughout the interviews. FOr example, when asked what she
would do if two of her farmers both had tomatoes to sell, she indicated her support for
both farmers by saying, “I would probably buy a little from each” (Petunia Public School
District, Enrollment: 2,534). Another food service professional said that even though she
was supposed to select vendors through a competitive bidding process, she would ﬁnd a
way to continue supporting her current farmers.

The majority Of the food service professionals did not tie their procurement
decisions to larger food system trends and instead expressed a strong desire to support
“their farmers” — those that were already supplying them with fresh produce.

Two food service professionals articulated a more long-term view. For example:

“I think we’ve got two percent of our population on farms and that’s real

close to zero, you know? That’s frightening. That frightens the hell out of

me. I want my grandkids to go to a farm and buy food, not have it

manufactured and I don’t think people really understand the risks and the

things that are going on with our food system right now. There’s an awful

lot to our quality of life that depends on those farms, especially the small

farms” (Jonquil Public Schools, Enrollment: 2,597).

The concerns expressed by the food service professionals were an important
motivator for their local food procurement efforts. Buying locally grown food, especially
directly from a farmer, required extra effort that the food service professionals did not

feel their peers would be willing to exert unless they had some level of concern for

farmers or the food system. As one food service professional at (Jonquil Public Schools

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Enrollment, 2,597) summed up, buying locally grown food is “not just a business

decision.”

Discussion

This study suggests that food service professionals’ motivations to buy locally
grown food are diverse and complex. The broad themes — “the students like it,” “the
price is right,” and “we’re helping our local farmers” — create the illusion Of
independent categories. However, these themes are very much interrelated and together
illustrate food service professionals’ efforts to balance their child nutrition and ﬁnancial
goals with their desire to support their local community.

Recent quantitative studies have highlighted the fact that food service
professionals perceive that one strong beneﬁt of farm to school programs is the support it
provides the local community (Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi, Rostant, Moss, &
Hamm, 2006). These studies were designed to gather data on food service professionals’
perceptions of local school food procurement and to collect Operational information such
as purchasing practices and preferences (Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi, Rostant,
Moss, & Hamm, 2006). Both studies asked respondents to select or rate potential beneﬁts
from a list generated by the researchers. A study of food service professionals in Iowa,
Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota reported that another perceived beneﬁt of buying
locally grown foods was enhanced public relations (Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002). In
addition, schools in communities of less than 1,000 people rated ability to purchase
smaller quantities Of food, availability of fresher food, and availability of safer food as

important beneﬁts, suggesting a stronger link with agriculture in more rural communities

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in the Midwest (Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002). Izumi et al. (2006) reported that in
addition to supporting the local community and economy, food service professionals in
Michigan would be motivated to buy locally grown foods for their school food program
because doing so would allow them to access fresher and higher quality foods, generate
good public relations, and purchase smaller quantities. The clear connections between
buying locally grown food and supporting the local community, fresher food, and higher
quality food were Observed in our study Of seven food service professionals. However,
good public relations, ability to purchase smaller quantities and safer food were not
strong themes in our study.

To our knowledge, no other qualitative studies have examined food service
professionals’ perceptions of farm to school programs. Clearly the perspectives of the
food service professionals we interviewed tend to conﬁrm anecdotal reports suggesting
that such programs beneﬁt both food service professionals and children (Azuma &
Fisher, 2001; Tropp & Olowolayemo, 2000). According to TrOpp’ and Olowolayemo
(200026) direct relationships with local farmers have allowed some food service
professionals to obtain fresher food than they would normally be able to buy through
their “long-distance suppliers.” Other beneﬁts included decreased transportation and
handling costs, and a greater variety of produce —— especially highly perishable or
specialty items which are typically only available through broadline distributors at a high
cost. One food service professional in their report said she noticed an increase in fresh
fruit and vegetable consumption among her students after she began buying these foods
from local sources (TrOpp & Olowolayemo, 2000). She attributed the change to the

increase in variety of fruits and vegetables she was able to Offer after she began working

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with local farmers through the Department of Defense Fresh Fruit and Vegetable
Program (DOD-Fresh), part of the USDA commodity entitlement program.

Our ﬁndings add depth and complexity to the link between locally grown food
and children’s food preferences that has been observed by others (Azuma & Fisher, 2001;
Tropp & Olowolayemo, 2000). The food service professionals we spoke with associated
children’s preference for locally grown food with the superior quality of the products
they were able to buy from farmers and wholesalers. They explicitly stated that this same
level of product quality was not available or affordable through their broadline distributor
due to the inﬂexible speciﬁcations of large food distribution companies. Variety, ﬂavor,
and freshness were used as key indicators of quality. In addition to and related to quality,
relationships with farmers appeared to have an important direct and indirect inﬂuence on
children’s food preferences. Relationships between children and farmers changed the
symbolic meaning Of locally grown food to “cool food.” Relationships between food
service staff and farmers generated support for farm to school which some food service
professionals speculated had a “trickle down effect” onto students.

The ﬁnding that the price of locally grown foods sourced through a farmer or
wholesaler was competitive with, and often cheaper than, food carried by broadline
distributors runs counter to the common perception among food service professionals that
locally grown foods are costly (Izumi, Rostant, Moss, & Hamm, 2006; Joshi & Beery,
2007; Oklahoma Food Policy Council and Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture,
2003). Shortened supply chains and relationships with farmers and wholesalers were
important variables that made these foods affordable. It is important to note that none Of

the locally grown foods purchased by the food service professionals were certiﬁed

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organic, which is typically cost prohibitive for schools. In addition, lightly processed
items such as washed and chopped lettuce, or peeled and cubed butternut squash, is
generally more expensive than whole, unprocessed fruits and vegetables. The food
service professionals we interviewed already had, if needed, the equipment and labor
necessary to prepare whole fruits and vegetables and therefore did not have to pay the
extra costs associated with lightly processed items. The additional labor and equipment
needed to prepare whole fruits and vegetables has been shown by others as a barrier tO
local school food procurement (Joshi & Beery, 2007).

Our study provides additional insight into why food service professionals buy
locally grown food for their school food program and begins to show the relationships
between the perceived beneﬁts reported in quantitative surveys and anecdotal reports.
The food service professionals’ emphasis on the positive impact Of farm to school
programs on their students’ fruit and vegetable consumption and their ﬁnancial bottom-
line suggests that ﬁt with school food program goals is an important motivator for and
beneﬁt of buying locally grown food from farmers and wholesalers. These goals can be
broadly deﬁned as promoting child nutrition and achieving ﬁnancial solvency. The latter
is seen as urgent in today’s ﬁscal climate especially as the cost of food continues to
escalate (March & Gould, 2001; Snyder, Lytle, Pellegrino, Anderson, & Selk, 1995;
Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006). The food service professionals also were motivated
by a strong desire to support their local community. This ﬁnding resembles the symbolic
sense of community and ethic Of care that has been identiﬁed among consumers as a

motivator for buying locally grown food (Holloway & Kneafsey, 2000; Kirwan, 2004;

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Sage, 2003; Winter, 2003). Farm to school programs were thus a tangible way for the
food service professionals we interviewed to help farmers and support local agriculture.

As described in previous studies and reports, food distributors can play an
important role in farm to school program efforts (Berkenkamp, 2006; Gregoire &
Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi, Rostant, Moss, & Hamm, 2006). They allow schools that are
already buying food directly from farmers to expand their local food purchases and make
these foods available to schools that do not have the capacity for or interest in farm direct
procurement. However, the perspectives of food service professionals in our study
emphasizes that all food distributors are not equal in terms Of the products they are able
to Offer. Critically, our analysis shows that there are ancillary beneﬁts such as lower
prices, ﬂexible speciﬁcations, and the “local feel,” that came with the personal
relationships with farmers and wholesalers involved in these farm to school programs. As
dominant school food service distributors seek to take advantage of the growing niche
market of local school food procurement, food service professionals should be aware Of
the advantages and disadvantages of buying locally grown food through different types of
intermediaries.

Although four Of the seven food service professionals we interviewed identiﬁed
regionally-based mid-tier food distributors as one of their sources for locally grown food,
the beneﬁts or motivators they mentioned were primarily associated with produce
wholesalers but not the distributors who carried produce plus other perishables. The latter
are family-owned and operated and buy food from local farmers whenever possible in
large part to capture the beneﬁts — decreased costs and higher quality — that come with

reduced transportation time. During the Upper Midwest and Northeast region growing

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season (approximately May through October), 25 to 80 percent of the produce these
distributors carry are grown locally (Izumi, Wright, & Hamm, 2008a). Thus, food service
professionals who purchased food from these distributors were de facto buying locally
grown food. It is not clear why the food service profeSsionals did not talk speciﬁcally
about the local food that they purchased through these distributors. However, since these
distributors did not always market their locally grown products as “locally grown,” it is
not surprising that the food service professionals did not associate those products with

their farm to school program efforts.

Limitations

This study has several limitations that need to be addressed. First, the small
sample and maximum variation sampling technique used means that our ﬁndings cannot
be generalized beyond the seven farm to school programs we studied. The participants
were identiﬁed through key informants and thus, the motivations discussed may not be
relevant to other food service professionals. The rich descriptions Of the food service
professionals’ experiences allow readers to assess the relevance of this research to other
farm to school programs. Second, the results may be biased by the set of questions asked,
as well as by the analysis. TO minimize the effect of such bias, open-ended questions
were asked and coding and analysis was cross-checked by a researcher who was not
involved with the study. Third, the interviews were conducted in the spring when the
food service professionals were not buying a whole lot, if any, locally grown foods. It is
possible that had they been interviewed in the fall when they were at their peak in terms

of local food procurement, their responses might have been different. Finally, the terms

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“farm to school program” and “local school food procurement” were used
interchangeably throughout data collection and analysis. However, all of the research
participants in this study may not have equated the two terms. When we were uncertain
about how participants’ used the terms “farm to schoOl program or “local school food

procurement,” we made follow-up phone calls for clariﬁcation.

Implications for research and practice

This study demonstrates that food service professionals buy locally grown foods
because doing so helps them to balance their need to meet their food service program
goals with their desire to support their local community. Relationships with farmers and
vendor characteristics emerged as important variables that may have contributed to the
beneﬁts that these fOOd service professionals expressed. This study suggests a
relationship between locally grown food and potential beneﬁts such as increased
consumption of ﬁ'uits and vegetables among children. However, much more research is
needed to better understand how these and other variables inﬂuence children’s short- and
long-term dietary habits so that supportive programs and policies can be developed.

The results of this study also emphasize the need for food service professionals to
understand the advantages and disadvantages Of buying locally grown food from different
intermediaries as well as their own motivations (e. g. improving children’s fruit and
vegetable intake) and interest in local food procurement. More research is needed on how
different types Of intermediaries inﬂuence the beneﬁts attributed to farm to school. For
example, what is the impact of intermediaries on the potential Of farm to school to

provide a viable market opportunity for farmers? How do different types of

93

intermediaries, through their selection and prices of fruits and vegetables, inﬂuence
children’s consumption of these foods? DO intermediaries pass freight savings, associated
with decreased transportation, on to schools? Research addressing these and other
questions are needed now as school districts across the country seek to institutionalize
local food procurement into school food programs.

Whether buying locally grown food directly from a farmer or from a distributor,
connecting children and food service staff to the source of their food — where and how it
was grown and who grew it — appears to be a key mediator between locally grown fruits
and vegetables and children’s consumption of these foods. Therefore, as schools
increasingly look to distributors for their local food needs, educational materials that

retain or create a link from farms to schools will be important.

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CHAPTER F OUR:

PERSPECTIVES OF FOOD DISTRIBUTORS

Introduction

Farm to school programs in the United States were established in the mid-19903
as a way to connect schools with local agriculture. While all programs are site-speciﬁc,
they are “generally intended to bring healthier, fresher food to school meals programs
while at the same time supporting local farmers by providing an additional source of
income and a relatively secure market” (Vallianatos, Gottlieb, & Haase, 2004:415). By
cutting out the “nefarious middleman,” advocates have argued that farm to school has the
potential to simultaneously address decreasing market opporttmities for small- and mid-
size family farmers and improve children’s health (Allen & Guthman, 20062408; Azuma
& Fisher, 2001). According to Vallianatos et a1. (20042415), school food service
represents a “potentially huge” market for farmers who could sell their products directly
to schools. In ﬁscal year 2006, the federal government put more than ten billion dollars
into the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, federally assisted meal
programs Operating in public and non-proﬁt private schools and childcare centers in the
United States (US. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, 2007a,
2007b) TO the extent that farm-fresh produce improves the school food environment by
supplementing school meals or supplanting the high-fat, high sugar competitive foods
that are available for sale at school, they have the potential to improve children’s health.

However, actually getting the food from farms to schools has emerged as one Of

the key challenge of developing and maintaining farm to school programs (Allen &

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Guthman, 2006; Berkenkamp, 2006; Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izmni, Rostant, Moss,
& Hamm, 2006). As a result, the program model has in part evolved to include various
distributors including more alternative produce purveyors such as those Operated by non-
proﬁt organizations, as well as more conventional distributors like Systems and Services
Company (SYSCO), a publicly traded company that is the largest food service distributor
in the United States. Most school food programs in the United States already rely on
“broadline” distributors like SYSCO for their food and non-food (e. g. paper products,
cleaning supplies, plastic cutlery) supplies. Broadline distributors, also referred to as
“long-distance suppliers” or “prime vendors,” are in essence, one-stop-shops which carry
nearly all Of the food, supplies, and equipment needed to Operate a food service kitchen.
The involvement of SYSCO and other dominant food service actors in farm to school
program efforts have raised questions among some advocates who, while recognizing the
need for intermediaries, question whether these large corporations share their broader
commitment of moving towards an agrifood system based on social justice,
environmental sustainability, and economic viability (Azuma & Fisher, 2001; Ohmart &
Markley, 2007). While all advocates of farm to school programs may not share these
values, the national effort to systematically integrate locally grown food into school
cafeterias emerged from these basic principles (Azuma & Fisher, 2001).

In recent years, the number of farm to school programs in the United States has

proliferated. The National Farm to School Network”, a portal for activities and resources

 

'4 The National Farm to School Network is a collaborative effort between the Center for Food and Justice
and the Community Food Security Coalition that provides technical assistance and resources to farm to
school programs across the country. The Network provides technical assistance, policy advocacy, media
and marketing services, networking opportunities and informational resources to farm to school programs
across the country. It was launched in 2007 with the purpose of institutionalizing farm to school programs
as sustainable models for "improving the economic viability of family-scale farmers and supporting child
nutrition efforts" (National Farm to School Network, n.d.).

96

for starting and sustaining efforts to link farms with schools, estimates that there are now
more than 1,900 programs, up from 400 in 2005, that are connecting their students with
local agriculture either through the cafeteria or the classroom (National Farm to School
Program, 2007). Data remain scarce on how many Of these programs have integrated
locally grown foods into their cafeterias. However recent state legislative actions that
encourage schools to buy locally grown food — deﬁned most Often as food grown within
state boundaries — for their school food programs are evidence of the growing interest in
local school food procurement (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2006; Kentucky
Legislature, 2006; US. Dept of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, 2002). This
interest comes from diverse groups of people in different social locations, from policy
makers to farmers to corporations.

The speed with which advocates have garnered broad based support for farm to
school programs has placed national and local efforts at a critical crossroads. As support
for these programs has increased, the focus has shifted from emphasizing “local” as a
means to create market opportunities for small- and mid-size family farmers to a means
to boosting states’ agricultural economies. These two end goals are not necessarily
contradictory. However, this shift in focus potentially undermines the trarrsfonnative
potential Of farm to school programs by making them vulnerable to cooptation by
dominant school food procurement actors who want access to the local fOOd market but
whose practices do not, currently, align with the values articulated by early farm to
school program advocates. But participation of intermediaries in farm to school programs

is not undesirable — food distributors are critical to the programs’ long-term success.

97

Although rarely discussed, regionally-based mid-tier food distributors may play
an important role in enabling farm to school program advocates to achieve their goals.
They can be conceptualized as food distributors that buy and sell food on a more
regional, as opposed to more national or international. scale. According to various
scholars, such mid-tier enterprises are part of an agriculture-Of-the-middle that has been
disadvantaged by increasing concentration and consolidation in the agrifood system
(Kirschenmann, Stevenson, Buttel, Lyson, & Duffy, 2004; Stevenson & Pirog,
forthcoming). We suggest that the food distributors proﬁled here, all of which are
currently involved in efforts to link farmers with schools, have the potential to help
institutionalize farm to school programs. Notably, their relationships with farmers, which
allow them to differentiate themselves from their broadline competitors, may be a critical
element in expanding the scale and scope of these programs without compromising the
basic principles from which they emerged.

This paper is divided into three sections. First, we draw Upon recent literature on
the embeddedness of alternative agrifood networks (AAFN) to provide a theoretical basis
for farm to school programs. Second, we describe the oppositional character of these
programs, how they potentially differ from traditional school food procurement, and how
these differences create challenges to integrating locally grown food into the cafeteria.
Then, we draw from research conducted in the Upper Midwest and Northeast regions of
the United States and present four cases which illustrate regionally-based food
distributors’ perspectives on farm to school programs. The paper concludes with a
discussion Of the cases and of the potential of these food distributors to act as program

conduits.

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Embeddedness: A theoretical basis for farm to school programs

Various scholars have used the notion of embeddedness to distinguish more
alternative systems of food production, consumption, and distribution that are not based
exclusively on commodity relationships. “Embeddedness expresses the idea that the
economy is not autonomous as must be assumed in self-regulating markets, but
subordinated to politics, religion, and social relations” (Block, 20012xxiii). The origin of
this idea can be traced back to Polanyi’s ([1944] 2001) critique of the market economy.
He argued that until the 18003, markets had always been embedded in the social and
cultural fabric of our societies (Polanyi, [1944] 2001). Economic systems were organized
around the principles Of reciprocity, redistribution, and householding or a combination of
the three. However, beginning with the Industrial Revolution in nineteenth-century
England, societies became increasingly subordinated to the demands of capital. As long-
standing relations of reciprocity and redistribution were displaced by the market economy
— an economic system directed exclusively by price signals — the market became
increasingly disembedded from society. Polanyi ([1944] 2001) argued that a
disembedded, fully self-regulating market economy requires that humans and the
environment be turned into commodities, produced for sale in the form Of labor and land.
However, they are not commodities and don’t behave as such. As the destructive
consequences of treating htmrans and the environment as commodities become apparent,
Polanyi ([1944] 2001) argued that people will resist, the state will intervene and the
economy will swing back towards a more embedded position.

Polanyi’s ([1944] 2001) insights, particularly the centrality of price and the notion

of embeddedness, are especially relevant in “today’s new-Old reality [where] we are

99

witnessing a systematic project to eliminate all impediments to the freedom of

capital. . .regardless of the social and environmental consequences” (Jaffee, 2007221). At
the same time, we are witnessing the rise Of a more alternative agriculture and food
system comprised Of various networks such as farmers’ markets, community supported
agriculture, fair trade, and food box schemes (Wright & Middendorf, 2007). AAFNS are
based on the purposive incorporation (or re-embedding) of values such as morality,
environment, and health into the production and consumption of food (Kirwan, 2004).
Scholars have argued that if such values are communicated to the consumer, they have
the potential to create a comparative advantage in the marketplace and thus contribute to
rural development (Kirwan, 2004; Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000). In other words,
consumers will select certain foods based on the qualities (e. g. fair trade, localness,
organic) that they embody. Producer-consumer relationships are critical in constructing
value and meaning for such products. These relationships are mediated through face-to-
face interactions between producers and consumers, proximate relationships such as
those between consumers and their locally focused food cooperative, and through more
spatially extended means such as certiﬁcation schemes (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow,
2000; Renting, Marsden, & Banks, 2003).

More recent analysis of the producer-consumer linkages in AAFNS such as
farmers’ markets has added complexity to our understanding Of the relationships that
undergird these networks (Hinrichs, 2000; Kirwan, 2004; Winter, 2003). Hinrichs (2000)
for example, reveals tensions between embeddedness and economic self-interest in her
analysis of farrners’ markets and community supported agriculture. She builds on Block’s

(1990) understanding of market behavior and applies the continuums Of marketness and

100

instrumentalism to direct market transactions (Hinrichs, 2000). She concludes that these
concepts offer important correctives to “overly sanguine” interpretations of direct
agricultural markets (Hinrichs, 2000:301). The continuum Of marketness describes the
importance Of price in economic transactions.

“High marketness means that there is nothing to interfere with the

dominance of price considerations, but as one moves down the continuum

to lower levels Of marketness, non-price considerations take on greater

importance. It is not as though prices are irrelevant under conditions Of

low marketness, it is just that they compete with other variables, so that

one would expect price differences to be much larger before they lead

actors to respond” (Block, 1990:51).

Commodity markets represent transactions at the high end of the continuum while
transactions between family and friends, where price competes with other variables such
as social relationships, may occupy the lower end.

The notion of instrumentalism supplements marketness and is useful for taking a
closer look at the motives of economic actors (Block, 1990). At the one end of the
continuum, behavior is motivated only by economic self-interest. As one moves down the
Spectrum to lower levels Of instrumentalism, non-economic variables such as friendship,
family, and morality are placed ahead of economic self-interest. Thus, as the importance
of price decreases (low marketness), economic behavior tends to become more embedded
in non-price considerations (low instrumentalism). According to Block (1990255), “the
existence of nonopportunistic behavior is evidence of embeddedness.” However, he also
points out that high marketness is not always associated with high instrumentalism and
vice versa because people can pursue their economic self-interest in ways that have

nothing to do with price. Evaluating AAFNS through the lens of marketness and

instrumentalism in addition to embeddedness, is critical to assessing their long term

101

potential because they reﬂect the reality that all economic activities, including farming,
must return reasonable proﬁts in order to survive (Watts, Ilbery, & Maye, 2005).
Recently, scholars have called for a more “holistic” approach to using
embeddedness that considers the “horizontal” and “Vertical” dimensions of AAFNS
(Sonnino & Marsden, 20062189). The horizontal facet provides insight into the local
context in which AAFNS take shape while the vertical considers the larger political,
institutional, and regulatory context in which they operate (Sonnino & Marsden, 2006).
This approach is particularly useful for analyzing the transformative potential Of farm to

school programs because it places them within their publicly ﬁmded context.

Farm to school programs: A new mode of school food provisioning?

Farm to school programs differ substantially from traditional school food
procurement both in purpose and practice. Although both are designed to promote health
among children and provide markets for domestic agricultural products, the goals of farm
to school programs with respect to the latter, are more speciﬁc. As stated in one of the
earliest program documents by Azuma and Fisher (2001 :5),

“Farm to school projects across the country universally seek to involve

independent farmers of various types: cooperatives, small farmers, family

farmers, organic farmers, and local/state/regional farmers. While one

could debate about strict deﬁnitions for each of these terms, the overall

thrust Of these programs is supporting agriculture that is more localized

and sustainable than large-scale, chemical intensive, industrial-style

agriculture.”

In traditional school food procurement, price tops the list of criteria food service

professionals use when selecting a vendor (Daft, Arcos, Hallawell, Root, & Westfall,

1998). In Block’s (1990) terms, traditional school food procurement represents

102

transactions that take place at the high end of the marketness scale. In contrast, farm to
school programs emphasize non-price factors such as localness and non-economic values
such as community and equitable payments to farmers. Like other AAFNS, farm to
school programs reﬂect the non-opportunism of embeddedness. For example, surveys of
food service professionals in the Midwest suggest that the ability to support the local
economy and community through local food purchases is a key motivator for connecting
their cafeterias with local farms (Gregoire & Strohbehn, 2002; Izumi, Rostant, Moss, &
Hamm, 2006). A tight ﬁscal climate and school food procurement regulations however,
make it difﬁcult for schools to divert from their typical practice Of using the lowest price
as their primary criteria in selecting food vendors. In other words, the value of the local
embeddedness of production does not give vendors of locally grown food a comparative
advantage in the school food marketplace.

School food programs, once a regular line item in school district budgets, must
now be self-supporting and in addition to food and labor, also must pay for expenses such
as equipment and utilities (Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006). Revenue is generated
primarily through federal reimbursements and food sales. Schools participating in federal
food programs receive reimbursements based on the number of meals served and the
eligibility status Of the student and the school (Food and Nutrition Service USDA,
2007b). Children in families at or below 130 percent Of the poverty line ($26,845 for a
family of four) are eligible to receive ﬁee meals and those in families between 130 and
185 percent of the poverty line are eligible to receive reduced-price meals. Schools that
serve a high percentage of children who qualify for free- or reduced-price meals (2 60

percent) receive slightly higher meal reimbursements than those with fewer children who

103

are eligible for free- or reduced-price meals. For example, in the 2007-2008 school year
the USDA reimbursed schools that served a high percentage of children from families
with low incomes, $2.49 for every free meal served, $2.09 for every reduced-price meal
served, and $0.25 for every paid meal sold. In additiOn to the money spent on lunch by
students who are not eligible for a free- or reduced-price meals, most schools also
generate revenue through competitive food sales (i.e. all foods for sale at school except
reimbursable meals), catering, and grants (Lewi & Coppess, 2007). Moreover, schools
participating in the National School Lunch Program (N SLP) also are eligible to receive,
in addition to cash reimbursements, $0.1875 in commodities for each lunch served (Food
and Nutrition Service USDA, 2007a). About 35 to 40 percent of revenue, including the
value of commodities, is spent on food (Berkenkamp, 2006; Pannell-Martin Dorothy,
2007). This means that schools have on average, $0.63 to $0.72 to buy all of the food
needed for a reimbursable lunch: one serving bread/grain, two servings fruit/vegetable,
one serving milk, one serving meat/meat alternative (Lewi & Coppess, 2007).

As publicly funded institutions, schools participating in the NSLP must follow
federal procurement regulations and bid their products in a way that ensures open and
free competition. This means that schools are prohibited from using geographic
preferences” when selecting a vendor. Since food service professionals operate under
intense time pressures they prefer vendors that can assure adequate volume, quality,
adherence to food service speciﬁcation, and timely, accurate deliveries (Berkenkamp,
2006). If these (and other) criteria are equal, schools typically use low price criteria to

justify their selection. This system favors broadline distributors who can provide schools

 

'5 In reality, many farm to school programs use geographic preferences when they request produce bids
only from local farmers or identify local produce varieties on their produce bids.

104

with access to a large variety of ﬁuits and vegetables packaged and processed to food
service speciﬁcations and who can offer streamlined service, competitive prices, and the
convenience of buying both food and non-food items. In addition, some broadline
distributors Offer rebates and early payment discounts that can save even smaller schools
thousands of dollars per year. For example, in the 2006-2007 school year, one school
district of about 11,000 students in our study saved more than $30,000 in rebates and
early payment discounts offered through their broadline distributor, which in the food
service professional’s own words, is “real money that is hard to give up” (Tulip Public
Schools, 2008).

While food service professionals across the country have expressed interest in
buying food directly from farmers, several barriers prevent them from integrating farm-
fresh products into their cafeterias. Distribution has been identiﬁed as the primary barrier
and includes delivery (e. g. ordering, receiving, storing) issues as well as the additional
administrative work involved when dealing with additional vendors (Berkenkamp, 2006;
Izumi, Rostant, Moss, & Hamm, 2006). Incompatibilities between the growing season
and school year in most of the country, handling whole (unprocessed) product, and
limited awareness of seasonal availability of products also are barriers to buying locally
grown food from farmers (Berkenkamp, 2006). Farmers who supply or have supplied
food to schools have shared similar concerns (Izumi, Wright, & Hamm, 2008b).
Consistently low volume orders, and therefore low economic returns, have been cited as a
key challenge to working with schools (Izumi, Wright, & Hamm, 2008b; Ohmart, 2002).
As a result of the challenges associated with developing and maintaining direct face-to-

face relationships with farmers, various intermediaries have become important

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stakeholders in bridging these two sectors Of the food system. These include more
alternative intermediaries that operate outside market norms as well as large commercial
distributors who currently dominate the school food service market.

Two food distributors whose practices align With more alternative agrifood
systems are Growers Collaborative and Red Tomato. Growers Collaborative is a
California-based distributor that was formed in response to increased consumer demand
for locally grown fruits and vegetables (Growers Collaborative, n.d.). The Collaborative
is owned and operated by the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a nonproﬁt
organization based in California that fosters family-scale agriculture and distributes food
from farmers to public institutions such as schools and corporate cafeterias in California.
Farmers who sell their product to Growers Collaborative set their own prices and these
prices are communicated to the customer. The Growers Collaborative model is based on
transparency throughout the supply chain; customers can evaluate their willingness to pay
farmers’ prices based on farmers’ proﬁles with which they are provided, that
communicate information about who grew the product and how it was grown.

Red Tomato is a nonproﬁt organization located in Massachusetts that distributes
to a variety Of different market outlets, including school cafeterias, produce grown by
family farmers in the Northeast and Southeast regions of the United States who use
ecological growing practices. A major explicit goal of the organization is "to help family
farmers survive in a market dominated by global agribusiness" (Red Tomato, n.d.). Fair
trade principles are applied to Red Tomato's approach to food distribution — farmers are
paid a fair price for their product within 21 days regardless Of payment by customers. Red

Tomato develops new wholesale markets and helps farmers develop sustainable farming

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practices and produce products that are in higher and more stable demand. Red Tomato
and Growers Collaborative are examples Of intermediaries whose business practices
reﬂect some of the underlying principles of values-based value chains16 that are emerging
across the country.

Value chains have long been used in complex-product industries such as
automobiles and high-end apparel. They are partnership-based enterprises that attempt to
“maximize value for the partners and for the end customers of a particular product or
service” and are based upon the following key principles (Stevenson & Pirog,
forthcoming): trust throughout the network; shared vision, information, and decision
making; commitment to the economic welfare of all partners. According to Stevenson
and Pirog (forthcoming), the value chain model may represent an opportunity for
regionally-based, mid-tier agrifood enterprises that want to differentiate themselves from
their larger competitors. Mid-tier food value chains are strategic partnerships between
midsize independent food enterprises. They “contrast with and complement well the focus
on the local for direct food marketing systems and on the global for commodity food
marketing strategies” due to advantages such as fuel efﬁciencies and real time
information (Stevenson & Pirog, forthcoming). Growers Collaborative and Red Tomato
reﬂect the type Of value chain partnerships that may be particularly important for
rebuilding the agrifood infrastructure that, in addition to farmers and farm workers
includes regionally-based processors, distributors, and retailers.

As farm to school programs have gained popularity among school districts across
the country, broadline distributors have begun to access this niche market by promoting

locally grown food to their food service customers. SYSCO’s Buy Local Sell Fresh

 

'6 Hereafter, “values-based value chains” are referred to as “value chains.”

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campaign is prominent among such efforts (Kennedy, 2007). Unlike Growers
Collaborative and Red Tomato, SYSCO is primarily motivated to buy and sell locally
grown food to “promote a positive public image” for their corporation (Kennedy,
20072108). Their deﬁnition Of “local” typically is tied to distribution areas which can
range anywhere from 5,000 to 180,000 square miles and in some cases, may even include
an entire region such as the Paciﬁc Northwest. Although the campaign is ostensibly
aimed at relocalizing food systems, according to Kennedy (20072110), it has been “more
of a marketing tool than it is a description of [their] procurement activities. In sharp
contrast to more alternative intermediaries, SYSCO’S personal connections with
suppliers, including farmers, are kept to a minimum because this type of relationship is
considered “inefﬁcient,” “inconvenient,” and “time consuming” (Kennedy, 20072105).

Some scholars have argued that even spatially extended AAFNS can reﬂect
notions of embeddedness that characterize face-to-face interactions between producers
and consumers (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000; Renting, Marsden, & Banks, 2003).

“It is not the number of times a product is handled or the distance over

which it is ultimately transported which is necessarily critical, but the fact

that the product reaches the consumer embedded with information. . .The

successful translation of this information allows products to be

differentiated from more anonymous commodities and potentially to

command a premium price (Marsden, Banks, & Bristow, 2000:425).”
Parnrigiano Reggiano cheese is often used as an example of a spatially extended AAFN
with a production system that is embedded in place, culture, and relationships between
farmers and other local actors (de Roest & Menghi, 2000; Marsden, Banks, & Bristow,
2000)

Other scholars, however, have questioned the extent to which products that travel

long distances through complex commodity chains can remain socially or spatially

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embedded (Jaffee, 2007; Kennedy, 2007). Jaffee (2007) for example, has argued that the
participation of transnational corporations (e.g. Starbucks, Sara Lee Corporation, Procter
& Gamble) have watered down the standards and principles of fair trade.

“Starbucks appears to have succeeded in associating fair trade with its

corporate image, accompanied only by token changes in purchasing

practices. The company has been able to use its considerable size and

advertising apparatus to appropriate the fair-trade concept for brand image

enhancement while doing as little as possible in the way of actual fair

trading” (Jaffee, 20072203).

As AAFNS become economically signiﬁcant, there is “potential for the
appropriation of the economic beneﬁts associated with the embeddedness Of
production. . .by dominant actors within the ‘conventional’ agrofood system, typiﬁed by
the ‘conventionalisation’ of organic food production” (Kirwan, 20042398).

Farm to school programs need food distributors if they are to make an impact on
school food procurement that is signiﬁcant enough to provide a wide segment of farmers
with a viable market and all children with access to fresh, locally grown food. However,
most Of the nation’s schools do not have access to more alternative intermediaries like
Red Tomato and Growers Collaborative. And while most schools currently buy food
from broadline distributors, these more conventional intermediaries may have a set of
interests that conﬂict with the underlying values and goals of farm to school. Although

rarely mentioned in the farm to school program discourse, the institutionalization of local

school food procurement may be aided through regionally-based food distributors.

Regionally-based food distributors: case studies
Four cases of regionally-based food distributors that are working with schools to

bring more locally grown produce to the cafeteria are now presented: Local Freshl,

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Northeast Produce Distributors, Mariano’s Produce, and Homegrown Produce. The data
presented in this paper are part of a larger study exploring the opportunities and barriers
of seven farm to school programs located in two climatologically similar regions of the
United States, the Upper Midwest and Northeast regions, from the perspectives of
farmers, school food service professionals, and food distributors. Our investigation was
limited to these three stakeholder groups because they are the groups most intimately
involved with the procurement and integration of locally grown food into the school food
program.

Data were collected through in-depth interviews with each Of the research
participants as well as document analysis of related written materials. Interview
participants were identiﬁed through maximum variation sampling to capture the
heterogeneity of local school food procurement strategies (Patton, 2002). We were
interested in learning from the experiences of stakeholders whose efforts reﬂected both
the dominant model for distributing locally grown food to school — directly from farms
to schools —— as well as models that use food distributors. Our criteria were that selected
farm to school programs have been in Operation for at least two years and have
stakeholders who would be able to articulate the challenges and Opporttmities associated
with integrating locally grown food into the school food program. In addition, given the
diversity of school districts, we selected programs that differed in terms of school district
location (rural, suburban, urban), free- and reduced-price meals status, and school district
size — all characteristics that might inﬂuence the extent to which locally grown foods are
integrated into the cafeteria. We began by asking two well-situated informants for contact

information for school food service professionals in the Upper Midwest and Northeast

110

who had been integrating locally grown foods into their school food program for at least
two years, a span of experience we felt would allow them to speak in some depth about
their speciﬁc efforts. Eight farm to school programs were identiﬁed. One food service
professional did not return our request for participation in this study. The school food
service professionals, farmers, and distributors involved in each Of the seven farm to
school program efforts were recruited for this study and agreed to participate. Across the
seven programs, only four distributors were identiﬁed as conduits for locally grown fruits
and vegetables.

Interview data were collected to provide a glimpse, unavailable in the existing
scholarly or advocacy literature, into the day-to-day reality of farm to school program
stakeholders. The interviews were conducted one-on-one by the ﬁrst author in spring
2006 and followed up by second interviews a year later. All interviews were recorded and
then transcribed verbatim. Interviews with food distributors lasted between 30 and 90
rrrinutes and took place in their ofﬁces although some questions were asked on tours of
their distribution warehouses. These tours were invaluable for providing context to the
food distributors’ interview responses.

Documents such as bid award letters and price lists were used to cross-check the
interview ﬁndings and enhance the validity of the results. In addition, newspaper articles
and other non—peer reviewed literature such as grant reports, handbooks, government
documents and newsletters relevant to farm to school programs were collected and
examined. These documents provided additional context for the individual farm to school

programs and helped to situate them within the broader national effort.

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In the presentation that follows, each case begins with a description of the food
distribution companies, including their local food purchasing activities. Food distributors’
perspectives of farm to school programs are then discussed. The conclusions formed in
this paper emerged from our analysis of semi-structtrred interviews with these four
companies. From time to time, we supplemented the data with interviews with school
food service professionals and farmers. Pseudonyms are used to identify the food

distributors and all distinguishing characteristics are veiled to protect their identity.

Case 1: Local Fresh!

Roger Dunn and Tom Morland own and operate Local Freshl, a company that
specializes in the sale and marketing of homegrown produce (i.e. grown within state
lines) to domestic and international markets. Located in the Upper Midwest, Local Fresh!
handles more than one million bushels of apples between August and June plus a wide
variety of locally grown vegetables during the summer months. Tom is a third-generation
produce wholesaler and in addition to his work with Local Fresh!, he is intimately
involved in the operation of Morland Produce, a wholesaler that distributes a full line of
fresh fruits and vegetables to retailers, food service institutions, wholesalers, and other
high volume customers on a year-round basis. Local Fresh! hires Morland Produce to
deliver their produce to their large volume customers.

Farmers bring their apples to Local Fresh! to be stored, sorted, sized, washed,
waxed, packaged, and delivered. They receive payment for their product after their apples
have been sold and payment is based on product quality and variety. Farmers (and Local

Fresh!) receive higher payments for popular varieties that are packaged for the fresh

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apple market versus those that are processed for juice or sauce. The majority Of the
farmers grow apples on small or mid-size farms with less than 200 acres in production,
however, Roger and Tom work with farmers who grow apples on as few as ﬁve acres to
as many as 500 acres. With few new farmers in the State, most of their relationships with
farmers are multi-generational, with some extending back to the 19303 when Tom’s

grandfather and great-uncle started Morland Produce.

Farm to school program perspectives: motivations and challenges

Since 2004, Local Fresh! has been supplying the Goosefoot Central School
District with a wide variety Of apples, one of the only locally grown products available in
the Upper Midwest on an almost year-round basis. The relationship was initiated by
Sarah Morgan, one of the 90-building school district’s food service professionals
responsible for food procurement. For years, Sarah had been purchasing Washington Red
Delicious apples — the red, shiny, but not always ﬂavorful apple that has become the
quintessential food service variety — from her broadline distributor. However, She
wanted a greater variety (i.e. color, texture, ﬂavor) of apples than what they were able to
provide at a price she could afford. Broadline distributors purchase apples ﬁ'om
wholesalers like Local Fresh! and at one time stocked a large variety of locally grown
apples. But according to Tom, things have changed.

“Years ago when SYSCO was much smaller, they used all kinds of apples.

But it was all local people involved in the company and they supported

our state very well. They used eight different varieties of apples and they

used volume Of all of ‘em because they pushed ‘em. And as they got

bigger and bigger and started buying from people in California, Texas,

wherever, it was like, ‘Well, gee, we sold ﬁve hundred [cases] Red

Delicious last month. We only sold twenty [cases] Of these Jonathans; we
should get rid Of ‘em” — they’re not proﬁt.”

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Bypassing her broadline distributor allowed Sarah to gain access to more than 15
apple varieties at wholesale prices while simultaneously supporting her state’s
agricultural economy, an important Obj ective of the Goosefoot Central School District’s
food program.

Every week or two, Local Fresh! delivers to Goosefoot Central School District’s
commissary (i.e. warehouse for receiving, storing, preparing food) two pallets of apples,
a very small volume order relative to the 36 pallets their other customers order on any
given day. Even though the commissary is conveniently located less than 15 miles away,
Roger and Tom are barely able to cover their transportation and handling costs in part
due to the small volume orders. In addition, they give the school district a “price break.”
Roger explained that as local residents themselves, they know that the Goosefoot schools
are struggling ﬁnancially and have, therefore, tried to keep their apple prices as low as
possible.

Despite low proﬁts, Roger and Tom have no plans to discontinue their
relationship with Sarah. They want to support a food service professional who they
perceive as “working outside of the box” through her efforts to purchase locally grown
apples instead of those coming from Washington. Roger explained, “Goosefoot is not
buying Red Delicious. They’re buying Galas, and they’re buying good apples for their
kids to eat, you know. And we’re impressed with that.” In addition, Roger felt that
schools, as a publicly funded institution, should be supporting the state’s economy. “Why
should our tax dollars be paying for West Coast apples when they can pay for our apples”
he asked. “And the money goes back into our state and it helps to keep the apples

ﬂowing. . .Whether it be from me or anybody in [state]. . .The schools are getting apples.

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So why can’t they be [state] apples?” Tom admits that they have an “ulterior motive” too;
school food service sales are a way to cultivate children’s preference for apples which he
sees as an investment in future proﬁts for Local Freshl, Morland Produce, and the state’s
apple industry.

Roger and Tom see limited potential for expanding their school sales to other
districts due to structural constraints that keep order volumes low and the transportation
and handling costs involved in delivering produce high. Tom explained,

“There’s some economies Of scale here. I mean, if we were going to get

heavily involved in doing a lot Of schools, we’d have to be charging them

so much money and we’re not doing that with Goosefoot. But they’re

close and you know, we can make that work fairly easily. But if we were

to branch out. . .our delivery cost is going to be so high to get the job done

that it makes it uneconomical for the school.”

Incompatible growing season and school year also mean limited opportunities for
Local Fresh! since the company focuses exclusively on locally grown product. However,
Roger and Tom felt they could potentially penetrate the school market indirectly by
selling their product to Morland Produce. Torn explained,

“In my mind, [Morland Produce] can Offer Sarah cucumbers 12 months

out of the year, I can’t. [Morland Produce] will have all of our product

whenever it’s available ‘cause they’re in [state] and they support [state]-

produced products, so when they’re available they have ‘em. When

they’re not available they have the supply sources for them. They have all

the products there all the time but we don’t. SO it would give Sarah a place

that she can go to year-round and it’s an option to SYSCO.”

Thus, even though Roger and Tom did not feel they had the ﬂexibility to meet the
relatively small volume needs of the average school food service operation, they were

hopeful that their relationships with Morland Produce and the Goosefoot Central School

District would lead to fruitful synergies.

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Qgse 2: Northeast Produce Distributors

Northeast Produce Distributors (NPD) is a family-owned and operated
distribution company that delivers fresh produce, other perishables and canned and frozen
items to more than 1,000 customers within a 90-mile radius Of its warehouse in the
northeastern United States. The company began in the 19703 when Steve Wong and his
son Sam opened a 1,000-square-foot fruit stand. NPD has since expanded into a 100,000-
square-foot distribution facility with more than 50 employees. In addition to serving their
school customers, they also deliver to restaurants, healthcare facilities, and supermarkets.
Since expanding their product line, they have become direct competitors with broadline
distributors. They differentiate themselves on customer service and their selection of
quality produce. According to Sam, broadline distributors do not “push produce” since
handling it can be risky; it is very perishable and the margins slim. He explained that
there are many different points along the supply chain where the quality of a product can
deteriorate. If a consumer receives a less than perfect product and isn’t satisﬁed, a
distributor can lose the entire account. Although it is less risky and more proﬁtable to
push non-food products and less perishable canned or frozen items, Sam has found his

niche in fresh produce.

Farm to school program perspectives: motivations and challenges

Sam believes he can support local school food procurement efforts better and
more easily than his broadline competitors because he has already established
relationships with local farmers who consistently grow high quality product. At NPD,

locally grown produce has always been purchased whenever possible, especially during

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the growing season when 75 to 80 percent of produce is purchased directly ﬁom farmers
or through farmer cooperatives. “It helps the community,” said Sam. “It helps the
economy in [state] and creates, somewhat, jobs.” The goal is to capture the beneﬁts —
decreased cost and higher quality — that come with reduced transportation time. Some of
the larger farms in the area grow product for NPD on what Sam calls, “a handshake
agreement.” He explained, “If I call ‘em on the phone and say, ‘I’ll take everything in
that ﬁeld that’s it. There’s no contract, no nothing.” The relationships that Sam has with
growers have provided him with access to product in short supply. “If there’s outside
entities looking for product when product is scarce, they’re not going to get it. We’re
going to have the ﬁrst take on all the products,” he said. His relationships also allow Sam
to be more responsive to his customers’ needs. “They allow us to niche ourselves better,”
he said.

Although Sam supports the farm to school program concept, he did not feel that
the program had generated more sales for NPD or that it would any time in the near
future. Tight food service budgets made it difﬁcult for schools to take full advantage of
the locally grown products he carried. For example, some Of his school customers did not
have the resources to use some of the whole fruits and vegetables that required additional
labor to prepare. In addition, food service professionals were reluctant to try new
products that they felt might decrease food service sales, a critical source of revenue.
Finally, tight budget constraints Often forced schools to buy apples through DOD-Fresh,
the US. Department of Agriculture/Department of Defense interagency ﬁ'uit and
vegetable commodity program that allows schools to buy produce using their entitlement

dollars. When apples become available through DOD-Fresh, schools will often choose

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these over commercially purchased apples since they only have to draw from their budget
to pay for storage and transportation costs. At approximately $2 per case, the impact of
these purchases on the food service budget is relatively small. However, Sam felt that this
diversion Of sales from NPD tO DOD-Fresh negatiVely affected his ability to sell locally
grown apples. In spite of these structural constraints, Sam changed his bidding and billing
systems in an effort to support farm to school programs and provide schools with
information (e. g. seasonality of produce, geographic identiﬁers) he felt would help them
tO increase their purchases of locally grown foods. In this way, Sam’s services help

further embed produce in place.

Case 32 Mariano’s Produce

In 1980, Nick Mariano opened Mariano’s Produce as a roadside ﬁ'uit and
vegetable stand. Since then the company has grown into a produce wholesaler that
employs more than 50 people and whose customers include supermarkets, food service
institutions, and restaurants located within a 150 mile radius Of the company’s warehouse
in the northeastern United States. Mariano’s Produce recently merged with another food
distributor that specializes in canned and frozen foods. Nick prides himself on being able
to satisfy his customers’ fresh produce needs and therefore purchases food from domestic
and international sources in order to buy the best quality at the lowest price.

“If there’s a product that’s produced here in the [state] that’s comparable

or better than something out Of state we will utilize that and save the

transportation costs. . .and for a customer, we pass that along. . .In general,

the product is better because we’re saving the transportation time and
there’s a two day shelf improvement on that.”

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Some products such as apples are always sourced locally unless a customer requests a
variety, like Granny Smith, which Nick says is not grown in the area.

Nick estimates that 25 percent of the produce he supplies to schools is grown
locally and more than 90 percent Of it is purchased directly from farmers. Prices are
negotiated with farmers but Nick does not try to bring the price down as low as possible.
“You have to keep their best interests in mind as well,” he said. “It doesn’t do you any
good if the farmer isn’t making money and he wants to sell his land to be a golf course.”
His relationships with farmers are based on reliability, price, and quality. Quality is based
on US. grades and standards and farmers bring their products to Mariano’s Produce
warehouse already washed, sorted, and packaged to Nick’s speciﬁcations. Reliability and
consistent quality are critical since product is not always inspected before it is delivered
to the customer. Over time, said Nick, “you build a relationship and you ﬁnd comfort

with that farmer’s product.”

Farm to school program perspectives: motivation and challenges

Nick sees farm tO school programs as a niche market that he is well-positioned to
ﬁll. He said,

“SYSCO’S a broadliner that purchases nationally ﬁ'om wherever they can

to save themselves money. . .They go and they strong-arm these little

farmers, maybe dairy farmers for that matter and tell them what they want

and you sell it or your don’t. They’re strong-arming these growers to the

point where there’s no room to make any money. And they’re reaping all

the beneﬁts.”

As more schools begin to request locally grown items, Nick said he hoped that he

would have the opportunity to increase his sales because of his access to and good

relationships with farmers. However, although his sales increased during an annual event

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promoting the purchase of locally grown food for school food programs, Nick felt that
overall, farm to school programs had not increased his sales due to the seasonality of
fruits and vegetables grow in the northeastern United States and because he said that
schools’ “hands are tied monetarily.” Budget constraints impacted the ability of schools
to take advantage of locally grown products that are not processed to food service
speciﬁcations (e. g. washed and shredded lettuce, whole watermelon) and therefore
require additional labor as well as products such as pears, which have relatively low
supply and high demand. Like Sam Wong (NPD), Nick felt that his ability to sell locally

grown apples to schools was undercut by DOD-Fresh.

Case 4: Homegrown Produce

Homegrown Produce is a third-generation wholesaler that supplies restaurants,
schools, hospitals, and other food service institutions with fresh produce on a year-round
basis. The business, situated on the fringe of a large city in the northeastern United States,
is made up Of multiple enterprises. Sandy Davis and her brother Doug own and operate
the business. Sandy manages the farm market and bakery, bids on wholesale produce
contracts, and conducts farm tours for schools while Doug raises hogs and Angus cattle,
and also grows a variety Of crops on their 400 acres. About a third of what they sell
through their wholesale produce enterprise is grown on their farm and much of the rest is
purchased directly from nearby growers when it is in season. Produce that is not available
locally is purchased from other parts of the country. Although Homegrown Produce was
once one Of the largest wholesale produce purveyors in the area, with the onslaught of

competition from broadline distributors, the company is now struggling to stay in

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business. Sandy tries to differentiate herself from her competitors by providing a high
level Of service to her customers and specializing in locally grown products.

Sandy is passionate about local growers and promotes their product whenever
possible. She said, “As a grower and a grower representative, because that’s what I try to
suit myself as, I push for [state] stuff, for state produce to be in these larger customers. . .I
have a passion for [state] growers, because I am one. And so I seek out who’s got what.”
Her desire to patronize local growers stems a sense of empathy for the other growers.
“Survival for growers is a tough issue,” she explained. “Especially in some of these
Northeast areas with the onslaught of building, and commerce, and taxes, and expense —
it’s just really becoming a major issue.”

Sandy has strong relationships with her growers and is loyal to those on whom
she can rely. In the produce business she explains, “What you need is teamwork. You
need to know that when you get the order you can rely on your grower or your shipper to
get you the product. . .There are many orchard people. I stick to one guy ‘cause I trust
him. And sometimes he’s my eyes; if he doesn’t have it, he’ll go ﬁnd it.” In a business
that has become less “hands-on and eyes-on” over time, trust in the growers’ ability to
consistently grow high quality products and package it according to the customers’
speciﬁcations is crucial. Sandy feels that her relationships with growers are critical to
“servicing the customer” and Operates her business like an “unofﬁcial cooperative.” She
elaborated, “it’s a network of people that you can communicate with and trust as far as
what their word is. . .so cooperatively you are discussing the product, you’re helping

market the product, you’re staying abreast of the seasons and the markets and a lot of the

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times they rely on me, like, ‘Well, what can I get for this stuff?’ You know, you’re

cooperating with each other.”

Farm to school program perspectives: motivations and challenges

Sandy thinks that farm to school programs are an opportunity for local growers
but that the program needs intermediaries if it is going to become part of mainstream
school food procurement. She feels growers have neither the time to make deliveries to
schools nor the marketing skills needed to drum up business with schools. Similarly,
schools do not have time or organizational resources to work with multiple growers.
According to Sandy, “the perfect scenario is to have someone to be the liaison between
grower and user. . .you have to have a point of marketing. And I pride myself as being
that person for my growers in [state].” She feels that she is an especially good ﬁt for
schools that want to buy more locally grown food because she has access to a full-line of
produce year-round but will take the time to buy locally grown fruits and vegetables
when they are in season. She actively “sells to” her customers and sees herself as a
marketer, distributor, and grower. “Food service doesn’t like change,” she said.

“And that’s one of the problems here with getting them to use something

they’ve never used before, trying a product on the kids that they’ve never

had. It’s only because of me, and I will blow my own horn, that we have

actually gotten the schools to use Asian pears, which they had no idea

what they were two years ago, and now we sell quite a bit of it and the

grower’s elated.”

Although Sandy believes local school food procurement is a niche that she can
ﬁll, she was not Optimistic that the program would create signiﬁcant opportunities and

revenue for her. She repeated the litany of hurdles given by other distributors ——

seasonality, food service budget constraints, and DOD-Fresh — but also, and perhaps

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more importantly, she felt that even if she did win the bid to supplement a school

district’s produce purchases, that the high minimum order size that broadline distributors

set has placed harsh limitations on the growth of her business. She explained,
“Setting high minimums has structurally ruined straight-lined purveyors
like us. . .[Broadline distributors] have to set large minimums because they
have so much overhead that they can’t afford to stop their trucks for a few
packages. . .And because that structurally happened, and I see both sides of
the coin, it’s taken business away from me because if a large school which
does business with SYSCO and they say ‘okay we have a $500 minimum
[order size],’ well, produce is produce, but it’ll certainly help make up the
minimum.”

Thus, the high minimum order size reduces food service professionals’ ﬂexibility

to buy produce from other vendors.

Discussion

This paper has sought to explore regionally-based food distributors’ perspectives
of farm to school programs, and in particular, how their thinking relates to the underlying
embeddedness associated with these programs. The results illustrate important
differences among food distributors’ attitudes, based in part on where they are located in
the commodity system. The study also captures the shared motivations and challenges
that emerged as core experiences across the four cases.

The idea of connecting farms with schools through the cafeteria converged with
the interests and practices of all four companies proﬁled in this paper. However, among
the four distributors, Local Fresh! was the only company for which the farm to school
program represented the only case Of penetrating the school food service market. Unlike
NPD, Mariano’s Produce, and Homegrown Produce, Local Fresh! did not have an

already established distribution infrastructure capable of meeting the relatively small

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volume needs of school food service. The perspectives of Tom and Roger (Local Fresh!)
parallel those of farmers who sell their product directly to schools (Izumi, Wright, &
Hamm, 2008b). Given the small volume sales, the convenient location of the school
district’s central commissary was a critical factor in Roger and Tom’s decision to supply
apples to Goosefoot Central School District. Thus, they were not willing to extend their
efforts to other school districts that were located further away. Although it seemed
unlikely that Local Fresh! would become a regular supplier of apples for school food
service programs, Roger and Tom hoped that they would reap future economic beneﬁts
of school food service sales by selling their product to Morland Produce, a company that
carried a full-line Of produce year-round.

NPD, Mariano’s Produce, and Homegrown Produce expressed similar
perspectives Of farm to school programs; all three distributors felt that these programs
were a niche market that they could ﬁll better than their broadline competitors because
the idea of integrating locally grown food into the cafeteria converged with their normal
business practice of patronizing local farmers whenever possible. These relationships
gave them a comparative advantage in food distribution, an industry that has become
increasingly competitive. NPD, Mariano’s Produce, and Homegrown Produce
differentiated themselves from broadline distributors by the personal attention they gave
their customers as well as their ability to act as a liaison between farmers and schools.
Their relationships with farmers were seen as critical to their ability to respond to
customers’ price and quality produce needs in a timely manner — produce that they said

wasn’t always available to broadline distributors. Therefore, they invested time and

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resources into developing and maintaining relationships with farmers who could
consistently provided them with high-quality product.

An interest in supporting the local community and economy emerged, to varying
degrees, as an important motivator for buying and selling locally grown food. As a
grower and a food distributor, Sandy (Homegrown Produce) had strong ties to other
farmers, especially those with whom she worked closely to ﬁll her produce bids. This is
evidenced by her loyalty to farmers and her role as farmers’ “point of marketing” that she
felt was critical to their ability to sell product. That she “sells to” her customers suggests
that she places a high priority on servicing farmers in addition to her customers.
However, as suggested by Nick’s (Mariano’s Produce) comment —“It doesn’t do you
any good if the farmers’ not making any money” — supporting the local community and
economy was Often associated with the distributors’ economic proﬁtability. The fact that
relationships between distributors and farmers are in part instrumental shouldn’t devalue
these relationships. Rather, this ﬁnding draws attention to the reality that regionally-
based mid-tier food distributors are trying to make a proﬁt in a competitive industry and
trying to survive.

All four companies proﬁled here emphasized seasonality as a barrier to
institutionalizing farm to school programs. The short growing season of the Upper
Midwest and Northeast regions of the United States means that relative to other regions,
there are few fresh fruits and vegetables that can be integrated into the cafeteria
throughout the school year. This barrier, of course, is a historical artifact; the school year
calendar and the agriculture production cycle are intentionally oppositional since children

were needed on the farm during the summer months. Still, with the exception of apples,

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fresh fruits and vegetables that are in season or available as stored items during the winter
months (e. g. winter squash, root vegetables) are typically not seen in school cafeterias
due to a lack of perceived or real demand. Since school food service revenue is based on
the number of meals served, schools are not likely tO' experiment with foods that students
may not buy. Furthermore, the inclusion of locally grown foods that requires additional
labor to prepare such as carrots with their tops still attached or whole watermelon is not
likely to be ﬁnancially feasible in today’s ﬁscal climate. Thus, while seasonality is
perceived to cap the growth of the potential of farm to school programs, its detrimental
impact can be lessened through the development of new structural arrangements such as
educating youth about new foods in an effort to increase demand, adding local foods such
as dried fruit, eggs, or meats to the cafeteria menu, or by changing the school year to
match the production cycle. Rather than focus on seasonality, our attention should be
directed tO the lack Of material resources, including ﬁrnding for school food service
programs, that is one of the primary Obstacles for farm to school programs.

As three of the distributors complained, the challenge of tight budgets in the
context of farm to school programs meant that DOD-Fresh displaced some of their sales
by making items such as apples available as donated commodities. This same complaint
also has been heard from farmers who have sold apples directly to schools (Izumi,
Wright, & Hamm, 2008b). From the distributors' perspectives, DOD-Fresh undermined
their efforts to supply schools with more locally grown food as well as the federal
government's own efforts to support local food procurement; this is a classic example Of

the contradictory nature Of the state (O'Connor, [1973] 2002).

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Finally, although it was not a theme that was present across the companies, one
food distributor (Homegrown Produce) mentioned that the high minimum order size Of
broadline distributors was a challenge to getting more locally grown foods into school
cafeterias. The impact of broadline distributors’ high' minimum order size on farm to
school programs is worth considering because most school food programs across the
country rely on these large intermediaries. More research on how broadline distributors
inﬂuence market opportunities for regionally-based mid-tier food distributors in general,

is needed.

Conclusion

Regionally-based mid-tier food distributors, such as those proﬁled here, can play
important roles in harnessing the potential of farm to school to create viable markets
Opportunities for farmers and to bring more fresh food to school cafeterias. The case
study method used means that conclusions drawn are based on the perspectives Of the
food distributors who participated in this study and may not be generalizable to other
contexts. The distributors’ personal relationships with growers Offered strategic
advantages correlated with distance, which allowed them to efﬁciently meet the needs of
their customers. In the case of NPD, Mariano’s Produce, and Homegrown Produce — the
three distributors that offered a full-line of product year-round —- these relationships are
what have allowed them to provide the level of personal attention to their customers that
they felt differentiated them from their broadline competitors who currently dominate the

school food service market.

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In his study Of SYSCO’S role in relocalizing the food system, Kennedy
(20072105) found that, in contrast to the perspectives of the food distributors proﬁled
here, that

“social connectivity [. . .] is perceived by operating companies as

inefﬁcient and inconvenient, and it is preferable to maintain minimal face-

to-face interaction between actors because it is time-consuming.”

According to Kennedy (2007), this lack of personal relationships with farmers has
been one Of the company’s challenges in supplying locally grown products to their
customers. While the sheer size and scope of broadline distributors makes developing
dense social ties difﬁcult, it is the agendas or intentions Of school food service actors that
make some companies a better ﬁt for institutionalizing farm tO school programs.

While Local Fresh!, NPD, Mariano’s Produce, and Homegrown Produce are
primarily motivated to buy and sell locally grown food for instrumental reasons, their
comments suggest that their decisions go beyond an economic rationality. Their
motivations are complex and illustrate the tensions between marketness, instrumentalism,
and embeddedness that have been observed in other AAFNS, including among other farm
to school stakeholder groups (Higgins, Dibden, & Cocklin, 2008; Izumi, Wright, &
Hamm, 2008b; Sonnino, 2007). These tensions may represent opportunities for the
development of school food value chains that can respond to schools’ demands for
locally grown food while maximizing value for all participants involved.

According to Stevenson and Pirog (forthcoming), trust is vitally important in
successful value chains. As evidenced by comments such as “it’s a network of people that
you can communicate with and trust as far as what their word is,” or “you build a

relationship and you ﬁnd comfort with that farmer’s product,” or “ [it’s] a handshake

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agreement,” trust in the sense Of loyalty, reliability, and competence undergird the
farmer-distributor relationships described here. School food value chains however, would
go beyond trust and be characterized, in part, by a commitment to the economic welfare
of all participants involved. This would include fair proﬁt margins to the farmer and
distributors but also to school food service professionals, who must at least break even to
remain solvent. Such school food value chains would not have to begin with farmers and
end with food service professionals. Instead, they hold the potential to extend the chain
further upstream to include such agrifood participants as farm workers or suppliers for
farm inputs and downstream to include children who, as the end consumers, can help to
shape demand.

The ability of regionally-based food distributors to catalyze changes within
traditional school food procurement practices through school food value chains or
otherwise, is limited in large part by a lack of material resources. However, this situation
may be changing as states work quickly to pass bills that support farm to school
programs. The high degree Of interest in such programs has led to a number of initiatives
that provide additional funding tO support the integration of locally grown food into
school meals. For example, the California Fresh Start Pilot Program provides schools
with a $0.10 reimbursement for every breakfast served to supplement breakfasts and
snacks with an additional serving of fruit or vegetable with priority given to products
grown in California (California Department Of Education, n.d.). In Colorado, a state-
funded fruit and vegetable pilot program provides fresh produce to select schools and
requires them to use Colorado-grown fruits and vegetables whenever possible (General

Assembly of the State of Colorado, 2006). Such initiatives provide some schools with

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funds that can help to address some of economic challenges associated with farm to
school programs.

The rapid growth in support for farm to school programs and state-sponsored
initiatives to integrate locally grown foods into the cafeteria presents the type of dilemma
that other AAFNS like fair trade are currently facing (Jaffee, 2007). Broad-based support
is needed to institutionalize farm to school programs into school food service. However,
as these programs become economically signiﬁcant, this same support may start to chip
away at the principles upon which farm to school programs emerged; school food service
stakeholders with an interest in diluting the transformative potential Of farm to school
programs may seek to appropriate the symbolic meaning of “local” for their own
commercial advantage. There are lessons to be learned here from the fair trade
movement. As quoted in Jaffee (20072230) “the ends are justifying the means for too
many folks. SO they’re willing to have a very short timeline about how they look at
things, have a real sense of urgency, and be willing to make any compromises to make
progress.” To protect farm to school programs from dilution, their goals — and the
policies that support them —— should ﬁrmly be placed within the context of the founding
values of these programs. Regionally-based food distributors that have the meaningful
relationships necessary to re-embed the school food service market back into the larger
society may be critical to enabling farm to school program advocates to achieve their

goals.

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CHAPTER FIVE:

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The research described in this dissertation is the ﬁrst to study farm to school
programs from the perspectives of farmers, food service professionals, and food
distributors — three stakeholder groups that are critical to the institutionalization of local
food procurement in public K-12 schools in the United States. Overall, this research
supports two major conclusions. First, when making decisions about buying and selling
locally grown food, the stakeholders in this study balanced various motivations. The
concepts Of marketness, instrumentalism, and embeddedness provide a theoretical
framework to describe much of the participants’ cognitive dissonance and tension.
Second, the transformative potential of farm to school programs is limited by the school

year calendar, lack of material resources, and procurement regulations.

Balancing embeddedness, marketness, and instrumentalism

Chapter two focuses on the viewpoints of farmers. Contrary to Ohmart’s (2002)
study, which suggests that philosophical rather than practical reasons drive farmers’
participation in farm to school programs, this study found that farmers were motivated by
a strong economic imperative and desire for personal autonomy. Despite the fact that
school food service sales contributed negligibly to their total sales by volume and
income, the farmers in this study persistently pursued schools as customers. Farmers were
hopeful that their investment in cultivating school food service markets now would result

in future economic beneﬁts. However, unlike other detours described by Mooney (1988),

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farm to school programs also Offered farmers ancillary and latent beneﬁts — helping to
improve children’s eating habits, and supporting the local community.

As outlined in chapter three, the food service professionals participating in this
study purchased locally grown food for their cafeterias because “the students like it” and
“the price is right,” and also because they hoped they were “helping our local farmers.”
The ﬁrst two explanations suggest an important motivator for and beneﬁt Of integrating
these foods into the cafeteria is their ﬁt with school food program goals. Such goals can
be broadly deﬁned as promoting child nutrition and maintaining ﬁnancial solvency. The
third theme — support for local farmers — invokes the notion Of regard for and symbolic
sense of community that has been identiﬁed among consumers as a motivator for
sourcing food locally (Holloway & Kneafsey, 2000; Kirwan, 2004; Sage, 2003; Winter,
2003). The food service professionals I spoke with associated children’s preference for
locally grown food with the superior quality of the products they were able to buy from
farmers and wholesalers. They explicitly stated that this same level Of product quality,
expressed in terms of variety and freshness, was not available or affordable through their
broadline distributor. It is important to note that the motivators or perceived beneﬁts
expressed by the food service professionals were associated with farmers and produce
wholesalers but not with food distributors that carried produce plus other perishables.
Connections with farmers gave food “the local feel,” and emerged as a key variable that
directly and indirectly inﬂuenced the procurement decisions of these food service
professionals.

The distributors who participated in this study were involved in farm to school

program efforts in large part because the idea of integrating locally grown foods into the

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cafeteria converged with their normal business practice of buying fresh produce from
local sources whenever possible, or as was the case for Local F reshl, exclusively. As
described in chapter four, although Local Fresh! did not have the infrastructure capable of
meeting the relatively small volume needs Of school” food service, they nevertheless
supplied apples to a nearby school district as a way to support their local community and
to invest in a market they hoped would ultimately provide an economic payoff.

Among the three food distributors — NPD, Mariano’s Produce, and Homegrown
Produce — that carried a full-line of fresh produce year-round, farm to school programs
were seen as a niche market, due to their existing relationships with farmers, that they
could ﬁll better than their broadline competitors. The distributors believed that these
relationships gave them access to high quality and competitively priced produce not
always available to broadline distributors — a comparative advantage and marketing tool
in what has become an increasingly competitive industry. In addition to capturing the cost
and quality advantages of decreased transportation time, the distributors were motivated
to buy directly from farmers and farmer cooperatives whenever possible as a means of
supporting their local communities.

In summary, the farmers, food service professionals, and food distributors who
participated in this research articulated complex reasons for their involvement in farm to
school programs. Their engagement can be rationalized as commercially motivated but
they clearly went beyond economic instrumentalism as evidenced by the non-economic
values (e. g. community, localism, health) that played a role in their decision-making

process. This research supports and extends other studies that emphasizes the hybrid

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nature of AAFNS and the need to assess the complex interplay between their embedding

and disembedding forces in order to understand their potential.

Structural constraints of school food procurement limit the integration of locally
grown foods into the cafeteria

As described in chapters two and four, the school year calendar (September
through June), lack of material resources, and procurement regulations and routines limit
the transformative potential of the seven farm to school programs studied in this research.
The fall through Spring school year and the summer-centered agriculture production cycle
intentionally don’t overlap, thus limiting the types of locally grown products that schools
can use in their cafeterias. However, as described in chapter four, understanding this issue
means going beyond calendar constraints and analyzing student food preferences and
school food service budget constraints. Foods such as winter squash, root vegetables, and
apples store well and are available over the winter, but except for apples, they are not
seen on the typical school lunch menu. This is due in large part to a perceived (or real)
lack of demand among customers (i.e. students) for these foods. Since school food
service program revenue relies primarily on the number of meals served, new menu items
that detract from sales are not likely to be added.

School food service budget constraints were repeatedly mentioned by farmers and
food distributors as a roadblock to integrating locally grown foods into the cafeteria. As
described in chapter four, tight budgets limited the schools’ ability to utilize many of the
foods grown in their regions. Especially problematic for schools were products that

required additional labor to prepare such as corn on the cob with husks, whole

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watermelon, and carrots with their tops still attached. As described in chapter three, one
food service professional was able to purchase asparagus directly from her farmer at a
lower price than would have been offered by her broadline distributor. However, at
$1.48/lb, the price was still too high for her to be able to Offer each child more than one
stalk, a serving that amounts to far less than the three-quarter cup portion required to
make up one vegetable serving for children aged nine and older.

Tight budgets also meant that schools necessarily took advantage of the
commodity fruits and vegetables offered through DOD-Fresh whenever possible. As
described in chapters two and four, DOD-Fresh negatively impacted farmers’ and food
distributors’ school food service sales. When farmers’ sales were displaced by DoD-
Fresh, some had to sell their product to a processor for less value. Food distributors were
able to ﬁnd other markets for their products but still felt that DOD-Fresh undercut their
school-focused business.

As described in chapter three, the food service professionals who participated in
this study purchased locally grown foods for their cafeterias because of the competitive,
and Often lower, prices for these products offered by their farmers and produce
wholesalers. For example, there is a cost advantage from a shortened supply chain when a
Cortland apple offered by a farmer replaces the Washington Red Delicious apple shipped
across the country by their broadline distributor. At the same time, farmers and
distributors said that tight budgets limited the extent to which locally grown foods can be
integrated into the cafeteria. Thus, integrating locally grown foods beyond substitution
may require increased costs in labor and equipment that food service professionals

currently cannot afford. In addition, if such foods are being introduced to students for the

135

ﬁrst time, several introductions may be required before they are willing to try them, thus
placing further pressure on the food service budget.

As described in chapters two and four, procurement regulations and routines limit
the potential of school food service sales to provide farmers with a viable market
opportunity. School food programs must follow procurement regulations that require
food to be purchased through a competitive bidding process that prohibits consideration
of geographic proximity. These regulations interact with school food service budget
constraints and routines in multiple and complex ways. First, the federal rule against
using geographic preferences when evaluating bids means that farmers are unable to reap
any sort of monetary value from the localness of their products. The inability to do so
makes farm to school substantially different from other AAFNS where farmers are able to
use their geographic location as an asset to appropriate increased value from their
commodities. The bidding process also means that farmers and food distributors must
compete for school food service bids. Since food service professionals are working under
severe budget constraints, the criteria used to justify bid awards typically give priority to
the lowest cost vendor. Thus, farmers and food distributors must quote the price of their
products low enough to win the bid but high enough to at least cover their costs.
Although this process is meant to ensure open and free competition, within the context of
school food service, it favors broadline distributors who are able to offer a one-stop-
shopping experience for food and non-food items as well as ﬁnancial incentives such as
early payment rebates.

In summary, these ﬁndings demonstrate that structural constraints limit the

potential Of farm to school programs to decrease the marketness Of school food

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procurement and to shift it from a process based solely on price to one that seeks to
integrate non-economic values into procurement transactions. It is important to note that
except for procurement regulations and the calendar mismatch between the school year
and agriculture production cycle, the barriers that were identiﬁed in this research
emerged from the routines that food service professionals have had to develop in order to

manage their food service operations under intense time and budgetary pressures.

Implications

Farm to school programs emerged in the United States as a means to provide
farmers with a viable market Opportunity and school children with increased access to
fresh fruits and vegetables. Whereas traditional school food procurement decisions are
guided by price, farm to school programs spring from a vision for alternative criteria for
school food procurement that is based on social justice, environmental sustainability and
economic viability and emphasizes non-economic values such as community, fair
payments to farmers, product localness, and health (Azuma & Fisher, 2001).

The ﬁndings presented in this dissertation show that although the interactions
between the farmers, food service professionals, and food distributors who participated in
this study are based on a commodity relationship, the complex nature of their motivations
is evidence that these interactions are shaped by the embeddedness of the exchange. Their
perspectives, however, also illustrate the limitations Of farm to school programs.

It is important to remember that that this research explored the perspectives of
farmers, food service professionals, and food distributors engaged in seven farm to school

programs and therefore the ﬁndings are not generalizable in the sense that the cases

137

studied reﬂect the experiences of these stakeholder groups in all farm to school programs.
However, qualitative studies may have “face generalizability” — such that “there is no
obvious reason not to believe that the results apply more generally” (Maxwell, 20052115).
The rich descriptions Of the participants’ experiences allow readers to assess the
generalizability or relevance of this research to other farm to school programs. The
following recommendations are based on the perspectives of the stakeholders who
participated in this study and are presented here with the hope that they might help to
strengthen the potential of farm to school programs to, in Polanyi’s ([1944] 2001)

framework, re-embed the school food market back into the larger society.

Clarify the goals of farm to school programs

Farm to school programs continue to be promoted as “win-win” opportunities for
farmers and schools (Azuma & Fisher, 2001213). The research presented in this
dissertation tends to support anecdotal reports which indicate that school food service
professionals and farmers do receive some beneﬁts from participating in farm to school
programs. However, selling to schools does not appear to provide the ﬁnancial windfall
for farmers that advocates had envisioned. Is creating viable market opportunities for
farmers still one Of the key goals for farm to school programs? It is hard to say because as
farm to school programs have proliferated across the country and new voices have been
brought to the table, the goals have become more Opaque.

While broad-based support is a strength Of farm to school programs, it also
threatens to dilute the focus of efforts to integrate locally grown foods into the cafeteria.

Among the supporters at one end of the spectnun are those who see farm to school

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programs as an economic development strategy that can boost states’ agricultural
economies; “local” is deﬁned exclusively by geopolitical boundaries. At the other end are
those who share the ideological motivations of many early advocates seeking to reduce
the importance of price, or marketness, in school food: procurement; “local” is assumed to
embody non-economic values such as community, equitable payments to farmers, and
health. The ideological differences of farm to school program advocates are not
necessarily contradictory but the strategies to achieve the disparate goals along this
spectrum are likely to involve school food service actors who differ substantially in their
marketness. As advocates seek to institutionalize farm to school programs through policy
changes at the national and local levels, it is critical that the goals are clariﬁed and that
benchmarks for success are identiﬁed. What will institutionalization look like? Will
success be deﬁned by the number of school food service programs that are integrating
locally grown food into their cafeteria? Will it matter if farmers receive fair payment for
their products? What types of farmers should beneﬁt from farm to school programs? Will
it matter if the food has been produced in a manner that helps to protect the environment?
What type of agrifood system do we want to leave behind for ﬁrture generations? Whose
ideas and priorities are represented in the farm to schOOl program discourse? These kinds
of questions, however uncomfortable, must be asked if farm to school programs are to

avoid making “non-reformist reforms” (Kloppenburg & Hassanein, 20062417).

Address school food budget constraints

Local and national policy efforts have focused on removing constraints associated

with procurement regulations such as the federal prohibition against using geographic

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preferences when evaluating bids. While such changes will allow food service
professionals to place a value on product localness, the heavy lifting around revising
regulations diverts attention away from the limits that lack of material resources places
on the transformative potential of farm to school programs. Even if geographic
preferences for locally grown products become allowable and food service professionals
are motivated by non-economic values such as community, equitable payments to
farmers, and children’s health, procurement decisions will almost always have to be
based on price if school food service must pay for itself.

The issue of tight budgets extends beyond farm to school programs and is getting
worse. The ﬁscal realities Of school food service has received recent media attention as
schools across the country struggle with sharp increases in the price Of foods such as milk
and fresh fruits and vegetables. According to a recent article published in The
Washington Post, the rising cost of food is outpacing increases in federal meal
reimbursements, leaving schools with no choice but to serve children unhealthful but
proﬁtable foods (Glod, 2008). Until school food service programs are adequately funded,
procurement decisions will be made under conditions of high marketness and non-
economic values will be subordinated to the market.

As I write this, the 2007 farm bill is on its way to the White House for approval.
Included in this latest version is language that will allow schools to use geographic
preferences when awarding their food service bids (Community Food Security Coalition,
2008). According to the Community Food Security Coalition (2008), “This change will
eliminate this barrier for schools to support local agriculture and will make Farm to

School programs easier to establish.” However, the farm bill does not include any new

140

funding for the National School Lunch Program, which means that price and not product
localness or any other non-economic value will continue to drive food service
professionals’ procurement decisions. Thus, the inability to valorize the embeddedness of
production due to ﬁscal realities limits the potential of school food service as a market
opportunity for small- and mid-size family farmers.

At least two states, California and Colorado, have begun to address their school
food service budget constraints by using farm to school programs to catalyze efforts to
increase funding for school meals (California Department of Education, n.d.; General
Assembly of the State of Colorado, 2006). In both states, fresh fruit and vegetable pilot
programs provide schools with increased reimbursements to supplement the cost of fresh
produce and requires that schools buy from in-state sources whenever possible. Although
“local” is narrowly deﬁned by geopolitical boundaries, programs of this type that attempt
to move school food procurement to lower levels Of marketness are important ﬁrst steps
towards realizing the transformative potential Of farm to school programs. At the same
time, such efforts remind us Of the highly idiosyncratic ways in which farm to school
programs have developed and their potential equity consequences (Allen & Guthman,
2006). If one of the goals Of farm to school programs is to improve the health of all
children and create market opportunities for small- and mid-size family farmers across

the country, both state- and federal-level resources must be marshaled.

Recommendations for future research and practice

Those working in alternative food movements have neither the time nor
often the inclination to study the larger context of their work. While
committed people work in many different areas of the food system to
effect change, those embroiled in direct action, whether on farms, in

141

nongovernmental organizations, in laboratories, or in agrifood businesses,

rarely have the opportunity to analyze their efforts. Yet this type of

analytical process can reveal possibilities for and obstacles to success that

may be obscured by the demands of day-to-day work.

--Patricia Allen (2004)

There are a number of important and concrete ways in which academics and
advocates can help to strengthen farm to school programs through research and practice.
Research that describes and analyzes individual farm to school programs as well as trends
associated with the larger national effort would be useful. As the ﬁndings in this study
suggest, analyzing farm to school programs at the horizontal (i.e. local context) and
vertical (i.e. political, institutional, and regulatory context) levels is important for
understanding how they operate and whether or not they are realistically contributing to a
more sustainable agrifood system. The proliferation of farm to school programs across
the country and the speed with which supportive policies and programs aimed at
institutionalizing farm to school programs are developed makes such analyses both
timely and critical. I sketch several ideas below. I

First, because this research is the ﬁrst to study farm to school programs from the
perspectives of farmers, food service professionals, and food distributors, additional
documentation from these stakeholder groups involved in other farm to school programs
would be beneﬁcial. Such research would provide advocates with a broader
understanding of the core experiences of farm to school program stakeholders and data to
inform the development of supportive federal-level policies and programs. Research

should be widely shared through a variety of media, including peer-reviewed journals and

mainstream and niche media, so that insights can be put into practice.

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Second, there is an urgent need for research on the conditions under which farm
to school programs beneﬁt school food service departments, children, and farmers. In
today’s climate of ﬁscal constraints and rising costs, comparing how local food
procurement impacts revenue and expenses relative to traditional school food
procurement practices is important. In particular, further study on the conditions under
which farm to school programs increase revenue or decrease costs would be useful. For
example, the food service professionals who participated in this study had the equipment
and labor needed to prepare whole, uncut ﬁ'uits and vegetables. However, many school
food service programs are heat-and-serve operations and do not have the kitchen facilities
or Skilled labor needed to prepare foods such as butternut squash, which involve peeling,
cubing, and cooking.

For children, research is needed on how ancillary farm to school program
activities (e. g. school gardens, ﬁeld trips to farms, harvest festivals, educational visits
from farmers) inﬂuence their preference for farm-fresh foods. Do such activities change
the symbolic meaning of fresh fruits and vegetables? Longitudinal or retrospective
research would allow us to gain a better understanding of whether and how these
different dimensions have positive and sustained impacts on children’s health.

The ﬁnding that school food service sales contribute negligibly to farmers’ total
sales by volume and income is consistent with other reports on the impact of farm to
school programs (Joshi & Beery, 2007; Ohmart, 2002). However, given the growth and
variety of farm to school programs, it would be worthwhile to investigate whether
farmers involved in other programs reap economic beneﬁts — short- or long-term —

through school food service sales. Open questions include: What is the role of

143

embeddedness in farm to school programs and other AAFNS in delaying or preventing
farmers from being forced off their land? How do farmers negotiate the tension between
marketness, instrumentalism, and embeddedness over the long-term? Important insights
into these questions can be gained by interviewing farmers who are currently selling their
product to schools as well as those who are no longer engaged in farm to school
programs.

Third, many school food programs already use regionally-based food distributors
to supplement the produce they purchase through broadline distributors. These mid-tier
intermediaries should be included in farm to school program discussions. The role of
such intermediaries in AAFNS generally has been overlooked, yet as the perspectives of
the food distributors who participated in this study suggest, involving wholesalers,
produce purveyors, and other regionally-based food distributors in farm to school
program efforts may help to facilitate local food purchases without compromising the
integrity of the program. The insights of the food distributors who participated in this
study suggest possibilities for the development of values-based school food value chains
that would maximize value for participants at each link in the supply chain. Descriptive
and analytical studies of current farm to school program relationships between schools
and food distributors are needed as well as documentation of the emergence and
development of new relationships including those that are based on the underlying
principles of values-based value chains.

In conclusion, farm to school programs have the potential to push farmers, food
service professionals, and food distributors to alter their practices to help create an

agrifood system that is environmentally sustainable, socially just, and economically

144

viable. However, this will only happen if advocates reﬂect on what they hope to
accomplish by integrating locally grown foods into the school food program. As many
scholars have articulated, there is nothing inherently virtuous about the local scale (Allen,
FitzSimmons, Goodman, & Warner, 2003; Bellows & Hamm, 2001; Born & Purcell,
2006; Winter, 2003). Rather, it is more useful to think of “local” as a strategy that can
have a range of positive and negative outcomes.

Geographic proximity between food production and consumption may help us to
move towards a more sustainable agrifood system. However, it is not sufficient. The
WK. Kellogg Foundation has recently articulated its deﬁnition for what it calls, “good
food” — healthy (it won’t make you sick), green (its production didn’t harm the
environment), fair (no one was exploited in its production), affordable (everyone can
access and buy it) (WK. Kellogg Foundation, n.d.). This deﬁnition together with
geographic proximity makes many of the assumptions behind the meaning of “local”
food in farm to school programs, explicit. Will qualifying or complicating the meaning of
“local” slow down the rate at which locally grown foods are added to school food menus?
Probably. But it also will strengthen farm to school programs by discouraging
participation of high-marketness school food service actors whose agendas conﬂict with
those of advocates who are attempting to harness the potential of farm to school programs
to effect real change in the school food marketplace for the betterment of the agrifood

system and children’s health.

145

APPENDIX A:

SAMPLING FRAME

146

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147

APPENDIX B:

INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENTS

148

Distribution Strategies for Developing F arm to School Connections
Informed Consent Document

You are being invited to participate in a series of two interviews intended to study the
economic viability and social impact of farm to school programs. The purpose of this
research is two-fold: (1) to analyze and develop supply chain models for distributing
locally grown foods into schools and (2) to examine the long-term economic and social
potential of each model. The ﬁndings from this research project will be used to guide the
development and implementation of farm to school programs.

Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law. You (and your
institution) will be identiﬁed with an alias on all notes associated with this study. IN the
event of any report or publication from this study, your (and your institution’s) identity
will not be disclosed unless prior permission is granted. Results will be reported in such a
way that you (or your institution) cannot be identiﬁed. Data will be securely stored in an
area that is accessible only to the researchers approved through the Michigan State
University Human Subjects Review procedure.

The risks associated with participating in this study are minimal. You will be asked to
respond to interview questions and provide ﬁnancial data which you may feel invade
your privacy or put you (or your institution) at a competitive disadvantage. All
information provided will be treated with strict conﬁdence and you may refuse to answer
any questions. There is no immediate beneﬁt to you from participating in this study.
However, in the future, this study has the potential to beneﬁt food service stakeholders,
like you, through the implementation of farm to school programs.

Questions are encouraged. If you have any questions about this study, please contact:
Betty Izumi at (517) 485-1678 or izumibet@msu.edu. If you have questions or concerns
regarding your rights as a study participant, or are dissatisﬁed at any time with any aspect
of this study, you may contact — anonymously if you wish — Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D.,
Chair of the University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS) by
phone: (517) 355-2180, fax: (517) 432-4503, email: ucrihs@msu.edu or regular mail: 202
Olds Hall, East Lansing, MI, 48824.

Your signature below indicates your voluntary agreement to participate in this study.

Participant’s Name (printed):

 

 

 

Signature of Participant Date

I have discussed the above points with the participant or, where appropriate, with the
participant’s legally authorized representative, using a translator when necessary. It is my

149

opinion that the participant understands the risks, beneﬁts, and procedures involved with
participation in this research study.

 

 

Signature of Researcher Date

150

Informed Consent Document Addendum
Photo Release
I hereby authorize Betty Izumi to take digital photographs of my business (e.g. farm, food

service operation, distribution facility) for use in publications and presentation associated
with this research project or for other educational purposes.

 

 

 

 

 

Participant’s Name (printed):
Signature of Participant Date
Signature of Researcher Date

151

APPENDIX C:

INTERVIEW GUIDES

152

F_armer Interview Guide 1

The purpose of this interview is to gather information about the market potential of
school food service relative to farmers’ other markets and how farmers make decisions
about the kinds of markets they pursue. I also want to explore how farmers characterize
the opportunities and challenges of farm to school programs.

1. Can you tell me about your farm operation?
Probes: What do you grow? What are your growing practices? Do you have
your own storage and packing facilities? Who are your customers?

2. How does your product get to each of your market outlets?
Probes: What do you need to do (packing, weighing, washing) to get your
product ready for market? Do you go through any intermediaries (brokers,
distributors, packers)?

3. Approximately what percentage of your volume and sales dollars goes to each of your
market outlets?

4. How did you learn about farm to school?
Probes: Do you know anyone who attends or works at the school? Do you
know any other farmers who are selling their product to schools?

5. What motivated you to begin selling your product to schools? What motivates you to
continue selling your product to schools?

6. Can you tell me about your experiences working with school food service?
Probes: What have been some of the beneﬁts, if any? What have been some of
the challenges, if any?

7. Suppose I was a buyer that approached you about buying your product. How would
you decide whether you would be willing to work with me?
Probes: What are the lowest prices or quantities you would be willing to
accept? What is the maximum quantity you could deliver and at what price?

153

F_armer Interview Guide 2

The purpose of this interview is to follow-up on core themes, concepts, and processes that
emerged during the ﬁrst interviews. I also want to gain additional insight into the
opportunities, challenges, and prospects of selling product directly to school food service.

1. There has been recent publicity about locally grOwn food. How do you deﬁne “locally
grown?
Probes: Same city, county, region, state, or country? Within a speciﬁc radius?
Within a day’s drive?

2. What goals, if any, do you have for your farm operation for the next 5 years? In the
next 25 years? What (or who) inﬂuences your goals? How do schools ﬁt into your
goals? How important is it for you to sell your product to the local market?

3. What plans, if any, do you have to sell your product to more schools? What limits you
from selling your product to more schools?

4. What do you think is the long-term potential of farm to school programs? What
factors would determine whether or not you continue to work with the school?
Probes: DO you consider schools a reliable and stable market? Are you
satisﬁed with the price that you are receiving?

5. At what point do you think it would make sense to have an intermediary facilitating
the sale between you and the school? Would you consider becoming part of a farmer
cooperative that sold product to schools?

6. What changes, if any, have you had to make in order to accommodate schools?

Probes: Have you had to make changes to in terms of your production,
marketing, or distribution routines?

154

Food Service Professiongl Interview Guide 1

The purpose of this interview is to understand farm to school programs within the context
of traditional school food procurement. I also want explore how food service
professionals characterize the opportunities and challenges of farm to school programs.

1.

Can you tell me about your food service operatiOn?
Probes: Do you have a scratch kitchen? Do you have a central warehouse?

Can you walk me through your procurement procedure for commercial foods?
Probes: Who are your vendors (e. g. commercial distributors, shippers,
wholesaler, farmers)? What do they offer in terms of products, services, or
ﬁnancial incentives?

. Can you tell me about your farm to school program?

Probes: How did it get started? How has it changed over the years? Do you
have an educational component? Which vendors do you go to for locally
grown food? Have you requested locally grown food from your broadline
distributor?

What motivated you to begin buying locally grown food? What motivates you to
continue buying locally grown food?
Probes: What are the beneﬁts of buying locally grown food?

How has local food procurement impacted your budget, if at all?
Probes: How much do you pay for locally grown apples (or other farm-fresh
product) versus non-locally grown apples (or other farm-fresh product)?

What are the challenges, if any, to buying locally grown food?

Probes: How do federal, state, or local procurement policies impact your
ability to buy locally grown food, if at all?

155

Food Service Professional Interview Guide 2

The purpose of this interview is to follow-up on core themes, concepts, and processes that
emerged during the ﬁrst interviews. I also want to gain additional insight into the
opportunities and challenges of local food procurement and its ﬁt with school food
programs goals.

1.

There has been recent publicity about locally grown food. How do you deﬁne “locally
grown?
Probes: Same city, county, region, state, or country? Within a speciﬁc radius?
Within a day’s drive?

What are the goals of your food service operation? How do your efforts to buy locally
grown food ﬁt into the goals of your food service operation?

How is the success of your food service operation evaluated? What would happen if
your program was in the red?

What factors do you consider when buying locally grown food?
Probes: How important is price? Do you consider product attributes such as
organic, quality, and local? Does your relationship with your vendor
(including farmers) come into play?

When you enter into an agreement with a farmer or regionally-based food distributor,
do you commit to buying a speciﬁc volume of locally grown product throughout the
year? If yes, what is the commitment and how was this negotiated? If no, what
inﬂuence, if any, does this have on your ability to buy locally grown product?

What plans, if any, do you have to extend your efforts to include more locally grown
foods into your cafeteria?
Probes: Do you plan to add more locally grown foods to your menus? Do you
plan to buy food from (additional) farmers? Do you plan to buy locally grown
food through your food distributors?

What limits you from buying more locally grown foods? What inﬂuence, if any, does
your business manager, school board or state education department have on your
procurement decisions? What about staff, students, and parents?

What changes, if any, have you or your staff had to make to accommodate your effort

to buy locally grown food? How do you think your staff feels about these changes?
Probes: Have you or your staff made changes in menu planning, ordering,
receiving, preparation, or marketing?

156

Food Distributor Interview Guide 1

The purpose of this interview is gather information about how food distributors make
procurement decisions and why they buy and sell locally grown foods. I also want to
explore how food distributors characterize the opportunities and challenges of farm to
school programs

1. Can you tell me about your food distribution company?
Probes: What products do you carry? What is your distribution area? Who are
your customers? Who are your suppliers? What makes you different from
other food distributors?

2. How does your company decide which suppliers to work with?

3. Can you walk me through your food procurement procedures?
Probes: How do products get from the farm to your customers? What is your
level of product handling?

4. How does your company develop the price that is paid for a product?
Probes: Is this an industry standard?

5. Suppose I was a school food service professional who approached you about buying
your product. How would you decide whether you will work with me?
Probes: What are the lowest prices or quantities you would be willing to
accept? What is the maximum quantity you could deliver and at what price?

6. What motivates you to buy locally grown product? When you buy locally grown
product, do you buy directly from farmers or through a broker or other intermediary?

7. What do you see as the opportunities of farm to school programs? What do you see as

the challenges of integrating locally grown food into the school food program?
Probes: Have your sales increased as a result of farm to school programs?

157

Food Distributor Interview Guide 2

The purpose of this interview is to follow-up on core themes, concepts, and processes that
emerged during the ﬁrst interviews. I also want to gain additional insight into the
opportunities and challenges of farm to school programs.

1.

There has been recent publicity about locally grOwn food. How do you deﬁne “locally
grown?
Probes: Same city, county, region, state, or country? Within a speciﬁc radius?
Within a day’s drive?

Can you walk me through the organizational structure of your company? Where do
you sit?

How are procurement decisions made? How ﬂexible is this process? What or who
inﬂuences your procurement decisions?
Probes: How important is price? Do you consider product attributes such as
organic, quality, and local? Does your relationship with your vendor
(including farmers) come into play?

What are the goals of your distribution company? How does sourcing locally grown
foods ﬁt into your goals?

What is the primary reason why you buy locally grown product? What are some other
reasons?

Suppose schools were required to buy produce grown in-state before considering
produce grown outside of the state. What types of changes, if any, would you need to
make in order to accommodate their needs?
Probes: Do you have already established relationships with farmers or other
intermediaries sufﬁcient enough to meet the demand?

There is a huge push for schools to buy more locally grown food for their cafeterias.
How has this impacted your business, if at all?
Probes: Have you been awarded more bids? Have farm to school program
events like harvest festivals increased your sales?

What limits you from selling more locally grown food to schools?

Probes: Does the USDA commodity program affect your sales? 13 there
enough supply of locally grown foods to meet your customers’ demands?

158

APPENDIX D:

CODE DICTIONARY

159

 

Table 6-2: Code dictionary

 

 

 

 

 

Code Deﬁnition Use Rule Example
Ancillary Non-market factors Apply when farmers I’m very concerned
Beneﬁts that motivate farmers make direct or about the dietary
to sell their product to indirect reference to habits that our young
schools. non-market factors kids are establishing.
such as child nutrition
or supporting the
community that
motivate them to sell
their product to
schools.
Bidding School food Use when farmers The schools want us
Process procurement make reference to the to bid on these
regulations present competitive bidding deliveries in August.
challenges to buying process as a But we hadn’t picked
or selling locally roadblock to selling apple one at that
grown food. their product to point. So how many
schools or to apples are out there?
improving the market What’s the value? We
opportunity of farm to didn’t know that.
school programs. There could’ve been a
huge windstorrn and
we’d not have any
apples to deliver. Or
the value of those
apples could have
gone up
tremendously.
Child Nutrition Child nutrition goals Apply when food I think one of my top
Goals of food service service professional goals would be to
program. talks about the child bring the freshest
nutrition goals of food possible food to

 

 

service program such
as increasing
children’s access to a
variety of fruits and
vegetables.

 

students that we can
and even to take a
step backwards and
go back to more
scratch cooking as
opposed to processed
foods.

 

160

 

 

 

 

 

Children Like Children like eating Use when participant The biggest reason [to
the Food locally grown food. indicates that children buy locally grown
like eating the locally food] is because the
grown food. The food students like it. They
source (i.e. farmer, actually like it. They
wholesaler, eat their apples, they
distributor) should be don’t throw them
noted. away. They eat things
like asparagus. They
eat things like squash,
you know?
Competitive Locally grown food is Use when food I hope we’re helping
Price cheaper than or service professionals the local farmer. And
competitive with non- state that price of it’s also cheaper.
locally grown food. locally grown food is [Locally grown
an important apples] ended up
motivator for buying being cheaper for us.
these products. Price Probably $4 a case,
may be expressed in and if you’re talking
terms of value. The about 70 or 80 cases
food source (i.e. that adds up quickly.
farmer, wholesaler,
distributor) should be
noted.
Convenience Convenient delivery Use when farmers or If we were going to
location is a key food distributors get heavily involved

 

factor for farmers and
food distributors
when deciding to
work with schools.

 

make direct or
indirect reference to
delivery location or
proximity of delivery
location to farm or
distribution
warehouse as a key
factor when deciding
to work with schools.

 

in doing a lot of
schools we’d have to
be charging them so
much money, and
we’re not going that
with Goosefoot. But
they’re close and you
know, we can make
that work fairly
easily. But if we were
to branch out. . .our
delivery cost is going
to be so high to get
the job done that it
makes it
uneconomical for the
school.

 

161

 

 

 

 

 

 

Convergence Business model or Apply when Basically what I’m
practices converge participant provides saying is if there’s a
with farm to school examples of buying product that’s
programs’ effort to and selling food as produced here in
connect school food part of their normal [state] that’s
service with local business practices. comparable or better
agriculture. than something out of

state, we will utilize
that and save the
transportation costs.

Customer Providing a high level Apply when food It’s because of

Service of customer service or distributor talks about personal service. Not
personal attention to bending over that they won’t get
customers backwards (including personal service with
differentiates food sourcing locally a salesman, but
distributors from their grown product) in salesmen are locked
competitors. order to meet his/her up on things that they

customers’ needs. need to sell,
commissions.

Defensive The desire to buy and Apply when Why should our tax

Localism sell locally grown participant talks about dollars be paying for
food based on a local-national politics west coast apples
symbolic sense of as a motivator for when they can pay for
community. buying or selling [state] apples. And

locally grown food. the money goes back
» into [state] and it
helps to keep the
apples ﬂowing

Distribution Distribution Use when participant One school I tried to
challenges prevent talks about work with, I ﬁnally
buying or selling distribution or gave up. It’s a big
locally grown food. delivery of locally school so I was all

grown food as a excited. It was right
challenge to on my [route]. But I
extending farm to couldn’t get near the
school program school with a truck
efforts. Distribution [. . .] and so the
challenges may be physical-ness of being
expressed in terms of able to ﬁnd a good
low volume order place to unload is sort
sizes, proximity of of very important.

 

 

delivery location, lack
of infrastructure for
easy delivery.

 

 

162

 

 

Farm to School
Program Goals

Farm to school
program goals or
goals associated with
integrating locally
grown foods into the
cafeteria.

Use when participant
refers to their goals
with respect to the
farm to school
program.

Farm to school ﬁts
because it’s
something that
customers like and
they want and there’s
actual desire for it in
the schools, and even
the students, the staff,
our own staff, parents,
really like to see that
we’re serving local
foods.

 

 

 

Financial Goals Financial goals of Use when food The second [goal] is
food service program. service professional to be able to be self-
talks about the sustaining because we
ﬁnancial goals of don’t get any money
food service program from a general fund
such as self- so I have a million
sufﬁciency. and a half dollar
budget that I have to
generate revenue for
so I mean, we have to
be self-sustaining.
Flexible Ability to buy food Use when food With the farmer, I
Speciﬁcations that does not meet service professionals could specify what I
institutional food indicate that they are wanted. I said I didn’t
service speciﬁcations. able to specify exactly want a whole lot of
what they want when stalk because I wasn’t
buying locally grown buying it by the
food. This code pound I was buying it
should be applied by the crate, so he cut
when participant talks that down for me [. . .]

 

 

about speciﬁcations
such as pack size or
grades and standards.
The food source (i.e.
farmer, wholesaler,
distributor) should be
noted.

 

and then I didn’t want
a twist tie on it. You
know how broccoli
comes like that? And
I didn’t want that
because it would have
been an extra labor
step for me. So I
could specify that,
which was a pretty
good thing.

 

163

 

 

 

 

 

Food Local food or Apply when The kids love
Education agriculture education. participant makes [farmer]. He’s one of
direct or indirect the coolest guys in the
references to formal world. And if we’re
(e. g. lessons) and able to do that, it
informal (e. g. farmer becomes a cool food
“walking the halls”) and kids like cool
education to connect foods, you know.
children with local They don’t want
agriculture. Food things that aren’t
education may or may cool.
not include presence
of farmer. We let [children]
know that [apples] are
fresh picked, or that
the cider’s fresh. We
just do that with
[farmers’] products.
Food Quality Food quality is one of Apply when There is a two day
the primary participant talks about shelf life
considerations when buying (or not improvement on
buying fresh fruits buying) locally grown [locally grown
and vegetables. food because it is of product].
higher (or lower)
quality than non- When I can, [buying
locally grown locally grown] is what
products. Positive and I do [. . .] and if the
negative comments quality’s there. Just
should be noted. because it’s local
doesn’t mean it’s
good.
Freight Savings Freight savings Apply when food From a freight

 

motivates food

 

distributor refers to

 

standpoint, we want

distributors to buy freight savings as a as much as we can
and sell locally grown beneﬁt of or from as close as we
food. motivator for buying can.

localngrown food.

 

164

 

 

 

 

 

Future Cultivating customers Use when participant We really want to

Customer (children and their discusses farm to reach these young
parents) motivates school programs as a children to make them
farmers and food way to inﬂuence future consumers of
distributors to sell children (and their apples and future
locally grown food to parents) to buy their customers of our farm
schools. product in the future. [. . .] That would

probably be the
biggest and best
reason to do it right
there.

Greater Variety Schools can buy a Apply when food Instead of getting a
greater variety of service professional red Washington apple
fruits and vegetables makes reference to [from SYSCO] all the
when they are sourced being able to procure time they were getting
locally. a greater variety of different colors,

foods when they different ﬂavors,
come from local textures. . .a variety.
sources. The food

source (i.e. farmer,

wholesaler,

distributor) and

context should be

noted.

Increased Increased Use when participant Kids eat more of

Consumption consumption of fruits indicates increased - these [locally grown]
and vegetables among consumption of fruits apples [. . .] instead of
children is observed and vegetables among getting a red
when product has children when they Washington apple all
been sourced locally. are sourced locally. the time they were

The food source (i.e. getting different

 

 

farmer, wholesaler,
distributor) should be
noted.

 

colors, different
ﬂavors, textures. . .a
variety. And I think
that makes a
difference.

 

165

 

 

 

 

 

 

Institutional Locally grown Use when food These growers and
Speciﬁcations products do not distributors talk about shippers, they’re
always ﬁt institutional the poor ﬁt between gearing toward the
food service product grown locally food service industry,
speciﬁcations. and institutional food whereas sometimes, if
service speciﬁcations. a school district wants
to use locally grown
carrots, they’re not
always packed the
same way as they
need for food service.
Low volumes Schools are low Apply when food To get a truck driver
volume customers distributor or farmer that’s willing to go
relative to other makes reference to here with two pallets,
buyers including schools’ low volume here with two pallets,
supermarkets, orders as an here with four, it
processors, impediment to the takes him two or three
wholesalers. market potential of days to make all the
school food service deliveries; he loses
sales. money.
Market School food service Use when farmers Sometimes you win,
Diversiﬁcation sales are used as a talk about school food sometimes you lose
market diversiﬁcation service sales as a way but I believe it’s
strategy. to supplement their incredibly important
income or diversify for farmers to have
their markets through diversiﬁed marketing
a new (even if outlets and not
modest) outlet. depend solely on one
venue. It’s the
aggregate we’re
looking at.
Market for School food service is Use when participants Our returns were
Lower End a market for lower talk about school food much lower last year
Products end products or service as a market with small fruit, but
products that don’t for products that don’t that fruit met the size
meet international meet institutional requirements the
standards of quality. food service schools were looking

 

 

speciﬁcations.

 

for.

 

166

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Market Market potential Use when farmers or I’m always looking
Potential motivates farmers and food distributors talk for a place to make
food distributors to about the potential of some money. It’s a
sell their products to school food service to proﬁt driven thing.
schools. return reasonable
proﬁts as a motivator
for their participation
in farm to school
programs.

Niche Market Farm to school is a Apply when food If there’s outside
niche market distributor refers to entities looking for
opportunity. farm to school product when product

programs as a niche is scarce, they’re not
market opportunity going to get it. We’re
that he/she can ﬁll going to have the ﬁrst
better than his/her take on all the
competitors. products.

Opportunity Ability to purchase Apply when food [Buying locally

Buying product at below service professionals grown] makes
market price due to and food distributors opportunity buys
farmers’ need to sell indicate that much more readily
it quickly. opportunity buys are a available.

beneﬁt of buying
locally grown food.

Relationships Relationships based Use when food I really stick with y

(food on trust or history of distributor talks about main guy ‘cause I

distributor and working together trust-based trust him. And

farmer) enables buying and relationships with sometimes he’s my
selling locally grown farmers as critical to eyes; if he doesn’t
food. their ability to meet have it, he’ll go ﬁnd
customers’ needs. it.

Relationships Relationships Use when participant Just promoting a local

(children and between children and talks about efforts to farmer. The kids

farmer) farmer. connect children with know the name

 

 

farmer. Relationships
may or may not
include presence of
farmer.

 

because he comes to
the farmers’ market
here. So when we put
his name out there,
they have a
connection.

 

167

 

 

 

 

 

Relationships Relationships Use when participant I think [farmer] hand-
(food service between children and talks about delivering it to the
staff and farmer. relationships between cooks is kind of like
farmer) food service staff and typing that local thing
farmer that yields back because the
support for farmer. cooks kind of pass
Evidence of support that on to the kids.
includes buying The cooks have that
farmer’s product for fuzzy feeling of [. . .]
personal consumption we love [farmer]
and encouraging doing those
children to eat deliveries, you know,
farmer’s product. and [cooks] know it’s
local, they know it’s
high quality, and if
they believe in
something like that, it
really ﬂows on to the
children.
Response Time Improved response Apply when food [Buying locally
time motivates food distributor talks about grown food] makes us
distributor to buy improved response more response [to our
locally grown food. time as a reason for customer’s needs].
buying locally grown
foods or maintaining
relationships with .
farmers.
Risk and Selling products to Apply when farmers Well, if we have to do
uncertainty schools involves risk refer to the risk that all at the farm
and uncertainty. (decrease value of and have to buy
product) or equipment to do that,

 

 

uncertainty involved
in farm to school

programs.

 

that’s going to be a lot
of investment and we
don’t know whether
we’ll get the bid or
not.

 

168

 

 

 

 

 

School food Tight school food Use when participant Sometimes it’s a
budget budget constraints refers to budget matter of a labor issue
constraints limit market potential constraints as an where at the school
of farm to school obstacle to improving district if they bought
programs. the market potential 25 watermelons to
of farm to school serve the kids,
programs. Budget sometimes they don’t
constraints may be have their cafeteria
indirectly expressed personnel to cut up
in terms of lack of the watermelon and
labor or time to get it on an individual
prepare whole, uncut tray.
products.

Seasonality Incompatible school Apply when Well, as a grower [. . .]
year and agriculture participant refers to the problem is our
production cycles seasonality as a kids are out of school

barrier to extending from June until
efforts to integrate August. So that’s a
locally grown foods pretty big window of
into the cafeteria. time they don’t get
the opportunity to try
certain things.

Support for School staff support Marks reference to I expected the cooks

Farm to School attitude or support to just come unglued

Program from school staff because they were

about integrating buying bushels of
locally grown foods whole squash [. . .]
into the school food They were so sad

 

 

program.

 

when the squash
supply ran out a
couple of weeks ago.

 

169

 

 

 

 

Support Local Buying and selling Apply when Well [. . .] it helps the
Economy or locally grown food participant talks about community. It helps
Community supports the local their desire to support the economy in
economy or their local economy [state]. It creates
community. or community by somewhat, jobs.
buying and selling
locally grown food. We’ve actually sold
them to Sarah under
what we would
charge retailers and
we’ve also realized
you know, that
because I live here, I
know Goosefoot
schools are not
ﬁnancially very well
and I just kind of tried
to keep her priced
low.
USDA USDA commodity Apply when food Sometimes USDA
Commodity programs (i.e. DoD- distributor or farmers will come in with free
Programs Fresh) undermine refers to USDA apples, so that’s
efforts to sell locally commodity programs something that every
grown food to or DOD-Fresh as an purveyor has to be
schools. obstacle to their concerned about.
ability to sell locally
grown food to
schools.

 

 

 

 

170

 

APPENDIX E:

DATA DISPLAYS

171

 

Table 6-3: Conceptually clustered matrix: Motives of food service professionals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motives (themes)
School District
The students like it The price is right We re helpmg our
local farmer
Tunp PUbhc FQ, SS, RF CP, FS, OB SC, FE
Schools
Goosefoot Central F Q SS RF CP SC FE
School District ’ ’ ,
Gilliﬂower Central
School District FQ’ 88’ RF CP SC, FE
Petunia Public
School District FQ CP, FS SC
Osmunda
Community Schools FQ’ 88’ RF CP’ FS SC, FE
Jonquil Public
Schools FQ’ RF CP: FS SC, FE
Bellﬂower City
School District SS CP’ OB SC, FE

 

 

 

 

FQ = Food Quality
SS = School Staff

RF = Relationships with Farmers
CP = Competitive Price

F S = Flexible Speciﬁcation

SC = Support Community

FE = Agriculture Education

172

 

 

Table 6-42 Conceptually clustered matrix: Perspectives of food distributors

 

 

 

 

 

 

Company Business Motives Challenges Relationships Fit with
Name Model (types) (types) with farmers routine
Local Fresh! Produce CL, DL, LV, DT, SY Generational Always buy
wholesaler SC, FC (father and locally
grandfather grown
worked with
same growers
or families)
Northeast Produce SC, FQ, FS CP, SY, BC Nurture Buy locally
Produce plus other relationships grown
Distributor perishables with growers when
that have possible
consistent
quality and
demndability.
Mariano’s Produce SC, FQ, FS CP, SY, BC Doesn’t try to Buy locally
Produce plus other bring price grown
perishable down every when
time. It possible
doesn’t do
you any good
if the farmer
goes out of
business.
Homegrown Produce SC, F Q CP, SY, BC The grower I Prioritize
Produce wholesaler work with is locally
plus good to me. grown
farmer I’m loyal to (including
him. own food

 

 

 

 

 

 

CL = Convenient Location
DL = Defensive Localism
SC = Support Community
F C = Future Customer

FQ = Food Quality

FS = Freight Savings

LV = Low Volumes

CP = Commodity Program
DT = Distribution

SY = School Year

BC = Budget Constraints

173

 

 

Table 6-5: Conceptually clustered matrix: Motives and attitudes of farmers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farmer Market Potential Ancillary Motives Challenges (types)
(lures)

Doug Jensen FP, F C, MD CN, SC, DL PR, CP, LV

George Watts FP, FC, MD SC, DL PR, LV, BC

Jeff Smith FP, FC, MD PR, CP, SY, LV

Shawn Burns CL, FP, MD CN, SC SY, LV, BC

David Parker CL, FP, F C, MD CN SY, LV

Ron Williams CL, FP, FC, MD CP, LV

Alan Moore CL, FP, MD CN, SC, DL CP, SY, LV, BC

 

 

 

 

CN = Child Nutrition

SC = Support Community
DL = Defensive Localism
CL = Convenient Location
FP = Fair Price

PC = Future Customer

MD = Market Diversiﬁcation
PR = Procurement Regulations
CP = Commodity Programs
SY = School Year

LV = Low Volumes

BC = Budget Constraints

174

 

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