Community Holds Second DeKalb County Farm to School Meeting

A growing group of DeKalb County parents, educators, community members, and elected officials met again Wednesday night to further their efforts in establishing a program.

The program was started by Rosalie Ezekiel, a Fernbank Elementary parent.  Her daughter, who spent the first several years of her life learning to love fresh fruits and vegetables, couldn't find many of those items in the school cafeteria.  The processed foods and canned vegetables that are prevalent in cafeterias across the nation weren't what she had learned to eat at home, and her mom wanted to do something to change that.  Ezekiel went to the parents of the PTA school garden committee and asked who was heading up Farm to School.  The answer was -- "How about you?"  Ezekiel did more research and realized that not only was there not yet a Farm to School committee at her school, but that it didn't exist at the county level, either.  So, she got to work.

Farm to School programs are sprouting up across the country and their purpose is to get fresh, local foods into schools, as opposed to school cafeterias' current reliance on pre-packaged foods, canned goods, and fresh foods that are trucked in from long distances.  Here are a few statistics presented at the meeting:

- Currently Georgia is ranked 2nd in childhood obesity, with one in three Georgia 3rd graders obese. 

- However, 360 Georgia schools currently feature local produce, with six school systems purposely purchasing local foods. 

DeKalb County does not currently have a Farm to School program, but it is working with the Chefs Move to Schools program initiated by the US Department of Agriculture.  In addition, the DeKalb County School’s wellness policy states that healthy choices should be available at all school functions.  The problem is, federal guidelines and concerned parents aren’t always in agreement as to what constitutes a “healthy choice.”  There was much talk at Wednesday’s meeting about the lunchroom options, which include nachos as an entree, breaded meats, and French fries as a vegetable.  A representative from the county's nutrition group made the point, however, that "we're stuck between a rock and a hard place because we want to improve this, but" some kids are picky eaters, and "we have to get them to eat something. These are foods that most children are willing to eat, making them viable options because they do meet the federal nutrition requirements, and for some children, unfortunately, lunch at school may be the only meal they'll get that day. "

For the second half of the meeting, held at those present broke into groups of eight or ten to discuss things like initiating local produce of the month programs on a county-wide scale (benefits, resources, and challenges) and other small-scale cafeteria improvements that could be made to increase nutrition awareness and/or increase fresh produce consumption while reducing processed food consumption. 

Some challenges that were discussed include federal regulations on school lunches, cost, and even things like the size of the school system.  DeKalb County has 100,000 students and is the second largest system in the state of Georgia. Making county-wide changes would be much more complicated than it would be in a smaller district (City of Decatur Schools, for example, has a district-wide Farm to School program with the support of their school board, but it's a small district with just under 3,000 students).

According to Ezekiel, “we’re taking baby steps like promoting a vegetable of the month (read more about that ), working to get local produce into schools, and trying to figure out how to make it a county-wide program.”

Several DeKalb county employees and officials were at the meeting to show their support and offer their input, including Brad Bryant (former State Superintendent of Schools) and DeKalb County Board of Education member Nancy Jester.

When asked for her take on the Farm to School campaign, Ms. Jester said that she’d “love to see groups like this take on lobbying,” and that she’s “not in favor of an oppressive top-down federal approach” to school nutrition.  At the county level, we can make peripheral changes, she said, “but people need to be engaged with their politicians, their representatives, to encourage change at the federal level.”   

Earlier in the meeting she had mentioned that “nutrition is a really big deal to me. What we put into our children’s bodies is going to affect how they think and learn.” Later she spoke of how letting cost dictate school lunch menus is tough, because “bad nutrition costs us in the future…obesity, high health care costs,” etc.  It’s a shame, she said, that right now, “we’re in a place where poverty is equated with obesity.  Unhealthy food is what’s most affordable.” She also mentioned that the government is “subsidizing the things, like corn, that are used to produce unhealthy food versus subsidizing local food,” and she encourages the public to lobby and demand that that be changed.  

Concerning the future growth and success of the DeKalb County Farm to School program, Ezekiel stressed that “finding allies is important.  Not every school has parents who are able to be involved.  PE teachers are excellent people to approach, for example.”  She’s also looking to join schools together to work toward obtaining grants and expanding the program to eventually become county-wide.  

Click here for more information about the DeKalb County Farm to School program and the National Farm to School initiative.