farm to school

  The bustle of summer has quieted, the fall rains have arrived and the school buses are busily retracing their routes along the woodsy dirt roads in rural New Hampshire and Maine this morning.  Not all are headed to your typical school, however. In South Tamworth, New Hampshire, a few dozen students arrive each morning at The Community School (TCS), a sprawling 19th century farmhouse on a hill, surrounded by 310 acres of woods, marshes and fields. During the weekly school meeting, the 7th-13th graders  often hear from the resident farmer about what’s ripe on the farm and what needs weeding.  During mid-day breaks, groups of students can be found  in the gardens...

When pizza is on the menu at the Burr and Burton Academy, the lunch cooks don't just reach for a couple of #10 cans of prepared pizza sauce. No way. The red sauce at B and B is house-made with slow-cooked onions and plenty of fresh herbs and garlic. Even though this is a high-volume high school cafeteria, chef/manager Charlie Robbins and his student assistants would never think of cutting corners. For 17 years, Chef Robbins has been making sure that students and staff at this Manchester, Vermont, school can enjoy real food at lunchtime. "We keep processed foods to a minimum here," says Robbins. "The soups are made from scratch: carrot/ginger bisque and Southwest chicken tortilla are two...

In California, more than 6 million tons of food products are thrown away every year by farms, restaurants and supermarkets. Food shelters, on the other hand, do not have the supply to meet the ever-increasing demand. A recent examination by California Watch and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism took a close look at California’s food system to try to identify the reasons why these unwanted food products are not channelled to food banks and other organizations where donations are greatly needed. The examination concluded that many grocery stores are more likely to throw away food than to donate it to local food banks because of liability concerns. Often, stores will donate...