Rappahannock County Elementary School Farm to School Day by Jimmy Nguyen

Driving through farmland with no other car in sight, the feeling of being lost crossed my mind numerous times. I stayed the course, however, composed by the tranquility in the cows’ faces that I passed by on the road and I eventually reached my destination, Rappahannock County Ele-mentary School. The school had organized a local foods day, which featured an entirely locally-produced lunch to be served in both elementary and high school cafeterias. The event was organized by Brenda Payne, the school food director, and Kenner Love of Virginia Cooperative Extension. The Rappahannock local foods day was going to be one event in the larger Virginia Farm to School week, which was from November 9-13. Apart from the school’s local foods day, I was also excited to learn more about the school’s innovative Farm to Table Program, which is an elective class offered to 6th and 7th graders in the elementary school.

Arriving in the school cafeteria, I was greeted by the familiar din of children and by Mat-thew Benson, the Community Viability Specialist in Warrenton, VA. He told me that he had been at the school the previous evening with dozens of other volunteers to help with the preparations for the day’s local meal, which included peeling and cutting hundreds of locally-grown apples for the dessert. It is evident that organizing such an event and maintaining unique programs like farm to table requires wide support and hard work not only from school staff, but from the larger community. Indeed some of the partners the school works with include Virginia Cooperative Extension, Buy Fresh, Buy Local campaign, Fodderstack Food Working Group, Piedmont Environmental Coun-cil, Headwaters, Williams Orchard, Jenkins Orchard, The Farm at Sunnyside, and Adams Slaughterhouse. This doesn’t include the numerous individuals that volunteer time or donate money.

Some of these organizations and farmers were present during lunch. The farmers in particular, were encouraged to sit with the students and talk with them about how lo-cal foods helps the Earth, the local economy, and their health. I had the opportunity to meet Michael Clune, manager of The Farm at Sunnyside. Clune provided the lettuce and radishes to make the locally-grown salad served with the lunch. The farm, which sits on the slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Rappahannock County, is certified organic and has an 80 member CSA providing their members and customers access to fruits (apples, cherries, peaches, pears, and blackberries), over 40 different varieties of vegetables, eggs, herbs, and cut flowers. Along with the salad, the locally-grown lunch consisted of a cheeseburger with meat from Adams Slaughterhouse and apple crisp with apples from Jenkins Orchard and Williams Orchard.

Before sitting down to enjoy my locally-grown meal, I was able to tour the kitchen and ask the staff questions about preparing the day’s lunch. It was a heat and serve kitchen with the burgers prepared in a convection oven. The prep time for the salad took an hour or two longer because of the extra cutting and cleaning. As one kitchen staff explained to me, “there’s usual more dirt on the local, fresh stuff.” Then there was the apple crisp that took lots of volunteer time to prepare the day before. This is one barrier that keeps the school from having more local produce in their meals. There simply is not enough kitchen staff or adequate equipment to reduce the preparation time.

For lunch, I was joined by Trista Scheuerlein, the teacher and director of the Farm to Table Program for Rappahannock County Schools, Kenner Love, the County Ex-tension Agent, Joyce Harman, a Renaissance woman (veterinarian, farmer, chiro-practor, acupuncturist, co-op organizer), and half a table of hungry students. From our conversation, I learned about what a difference the local foods days have made in the school. Since the first local foods day, the school started purchasing apples locally and they discovered that this saved them about $23/bushel of apples (lo-cally it costs $22/bushel compared with $45/bushel from the regional distributor). With the money that the local apples saves the school, the school is now starting to send out bids to local meat producers to see if buying local meat fits within their budget. My tablemates also spoke passionately about why schools should purchase locally to support mid-sized farms. Virginia loses over 100,000 acres of farmland to development every year and 54% of Virginia farms report a net loss

of income (Source: Virginia Cooperative Extension). Schools can be an integral part of the supply chain if some barriers can be overcome.

One such barrier includes the school’s food purchasing budget. As Dr. Har-man explained to me, “It is really tough to feed anyone real food on about $1.19 per meal.” For her, competing with large meat packers to supply ground beef to schools is very difficult. It costs large meat packers about 4 cents per pound to slaughter and prep their meat, whereas it costs her and other mid-sized producers 55 cents a pound for processing plus a kill fee of about $40. These prices do not even include the costs associated with caring for an ani-mal for 2 years. One solution to this problem is for farmers to pool resources and join a co-op, which Dr. Harman is currently organizing. Another solu-tion would be to increase the amount of funding that goes towards purchas-ing school food. As Dr. Harman expresses perfectly, “Chemically processed, soy extended, mystery meat, and canned veggies are cheap and easy, but the real cost is in

health care later on.” Ms. Scheuerlein adds, “I told the students here that their generation will be the first generation to have a lower life expectancy than their parents.” The blame for this can be put largely on what they are consuming everyday. Overcoming purchasing barriers for local foods can take a long time to overcome, but one thing schools can do now is start educat-ing kids about healthy eating, local foods and economies, and environmental stewardship to prepare them to become healthy and positive community members. This is exactly what Rap-pahannock’s Farm to Table Program seeks to accomplish.

Ms. Scheuerlein invited me to sit-in on a Farm to Table class. The class’ activity this day included a writing exercise that had the students express their opinions and feelings on the local meal (The writing exercise was one way the class tries to incorporate standards of learning (SOLs) into its curriculum This is one barrier to having the school permanently adopt the class into the school program). One student yelled with enthusiasm, “The salad was friggin’ awesome” and “I love radishes.” Very rare things for a young student to say indeed. However, I noticed that most students in the cafeteria did not finish their salad. It just shows that good eating practices are hard to teach, but that the Farm to Table class may be having some success in this area. During class, there was also a great discussion about why buying local foods is so important. In this area, the students understood that not only is it healthier and more environmentally-friendly, but that buying lo-cally supports their community, neighbors, and friends. Ms. Scheuerlein did a won-derful job of making the students realize how great Rappahannock County is and if the students do not stay active and aware, it could all change for the worst quickly.

As part of the Farm to Table Program, the students also maintain a school garden. This helps them practice what they learn inside the classroom. Many people assume that since these students grow up in a farming community where a majority of the students have parents who own or work on farms that they already know about growing fruits and vegeta-bles. However, Ms. Scheuerlein, pointed out to me that when she asks her students how many of their families have a garden at home, the ma-jority do not. Most Rappahannock County farms raise cattle and/or grow apples and other tree fruits like peaches and cherries. The school garden could have lasting effects on the community as it teaches students about polyculture and sustainable farming. Who knows, maybe some of the students will feel inspired to start their own CSA farm. As Kenner Love pointed out, “Opportunities do exist for cattle farmers to lease a portion of their land to other farmers who wish to grow and market alternative

crops but can’t afford the land or infrastructure necessary to farm.”

More Pictures and stories

Here’s a student who really enjoys his lettuce. He must be enrolled in the Farm to Table Program.

One of the great things about Rap-pahannock County Schools is all the signs and posters that show how much they love their local farmers and local foods.

The cafeteria staff who are an integral part to any successful Farm to School activity.

Hoop House at the Rappahannock County High School provided by the Farm to Table Program. They are in the process of installing radiant heating to keep the soil temperature above freezing.

Farm to Table class is in session with teacher Trista

Scheuerlein.