advantaged schools will be offered for schools to increase organic offerings in
their meal programs. Because the Organic Pilot Program is not mandatory, the
Appropriations Committee will decide on funding for the program.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced the proposed changes,
according to an article in Organic Authority, which include: decreasing and limiting the amount of french fries that can be served and adding a meal calorie maximum, because children consume 30 percent to 50 percent of their calories at
school and there are currently no caloric guidelines in place. Other changes include sodium reduction, the inclusion of orange and green vegetables and more
money per child per meal for schools to help bring in higher quality foods.
But many organic companies are not waiting around for the government to
take action. Organic Valley has been working with chef Ann Cooper, “The Renegade Lunch Lady,” to get organic milk into schools. “We bid on some school
lunch programs and found that even if we cut our margins completely and priced
the 8-ounce pints at cost, our bids were still about double that of the conventional
milk prices,” says Organic Valley’s vice president of sales, Eric Newman.
So they started thinking outside the drink box, and Cooper suggested that Organic Valley go old school and return to “bag in the box” milk, dispensed out of
the large retro stainless steel coolers used in cafeterias back when most of us were
kids. Using this bulk method and reusable cups, Organic Valley was able to offer
children in elementary schools in Berkeley, CA, and Boulder, CO, organic milk
for around the same price as conventional.
Organic Valley also helps with many “farm to school” programs, which were allotted $40 million in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The National Farm to
School program, coordinated by the Center for Food and Justice, Occidental College and the Community Food Security Coalition, was started in 2007 and now
works with over 9,629 individual schools throughout 48 states. The program seeks
to provide healthier meals to schoolchildren while also supporting local farmers.
This organization also spearheaded the FoodCorps—a national school garden
program.
Nature’s Path Foods is also working to get organic in schools by creating a pilot
program with the Marin County public schools in northern California to provide
organic cereal for the school’s free and reduced-price breakfast program. Working within these budgets is extremely challenging, however, says Maria Emmer-Aanes, marketing director. “These schools only get 72 cents to spend on each
child for breakfast, or $1.50 for breakfast and lunch,” she says. “It doesn’t give us
much to work with, but we figure if we can crack the code with this school system,
“Some people have been suspicious
of ‘organic’ because of the
perception that it is for the elite. But
when their kids, who have been
learning about organic in the
community garden, come home and
talk about composting and
pesticides, they start seeing organic
in a different light.”
we can do it with others.”
Many community members them-
selves also have taken steps to get or-
ganic in their schools. The Olympia,
WA, school district adopted a policy in
2004 banning junk food and encourag-
ing organic food in school cafeterias.
Today, the school district’s organic
salad bar has proven to be so popu-
lar—and surprisingly, economical—
that all Olympia grade schools now
have one. “It’s about a long-term in-
vestment in the health of our chil-
dren,” Olympia’s Lincoln Elementary
School principal Cheryl Petra told USA
Today. “We are the responsible adults.
We can do this,” she said. California
school districts in Berkeley, Santa Mon-
ica and Palo Alto also have organic
food programs.
Farmers Markets—the Gateway to
Organic
Mark Winne, author of the book
Closing the Food Gap, points to farmers
markets and CSAs as the most important ways to create access to organic in
all types of communities, including
food deserts and other disadvantaged
neighborhoods.
The number of local farmers markets has increased from 1,755 in 1994
to 6,132 in 2010, with 16 percent
growth over 2009 alone, according to a
study published in August 2010 by the
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Serv-
