Study: Farm to school incubator program expands market for small growers

For Anna Knight, a citrus farmer based in Redlands, farm to school (F2S) procurement has been an important part of her family’s operation for nearly two decades.

“Rather than not knowing who your end customer is and selling to a commercial packing house where you're paying for pickers and packers and marketing and distribution, we were selling to our local lunch lady,” said Knight. “And that meant that we could keep so much more of each dollar that's spent on fruit.”

She attributes much of Old Grove Orange’s success to these relationships. Approximately  7,000 students visit each year to experience the farm and learn where their food is grown.

Since 2021 the F2S Incubator Grant Program, run by the California Department of Food and Agriculture Office of Farm to Fork, has provided $86.8 million to establish networks of food hubs, distributors and growers. The largest allocation came this year, with $52.8 million going to 195 projects.

“This funding allows [grantees] to get stronger and to build additional little tentacles, so to speak, amongst different players in the supply chain,” said Gail Feenstra, co-principal investigator for the F2S Incubator grant evaluation. 

Feenstra is a member of the case study team, a subset of the 20-person evaluation team that released a report detailing how the program is meeting the goals established by the F2S Roadmap. Their hypothesis: maintaining the long-term sustainability of networks inside the supply chain is important to the success of F2S projects across the state.

The report focused on the 2022 cohort, which was awarded $25.5 million across 120 projects, ultimately engaging 163 school districts, over 50 farms and four “food hubs,” defined by USDA as “a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing” of locally sourced foods.

Among the report findings, Feenstra said a major success factor was the appointment of 13  regional F2S network leads and regional F2S producer engagement specialists across the state.

Knight, a 2022 cohort member who will again receive funding this year, was “pleasantly surprised” by her local CDFA leads. She complimented them for building connections for Old Grove Orange without taking over the conversation, estimating they aided 10 new relationships to her network.

   It’s easy to be “in the know” about what’s happening in Washington, D.C. Sign up for a FREE month of  Agri-Pulse news! Simply click here

“They empowered not just the school district to make their own kind of purchasing decision, but they also empowered me as a farmer,” she said. 

Knight’s operation had both educational and production-oriented uses for their funding. They purchased a new citrus haul truck, used to transport the fruit from grove to packing shed to schools. They also bought fencing to incorporate sheep and chickens into their production cycle to expand on their current regenerative practices.

To increase their educational programming, Knight said they built an outdoor tasting kitchen for visiting students, providing a “u-pick, u-taste” element. They also installed a farm access road so that school buses can more easily visit the farm for demonstrations.

With the next round of funding, Knight wants to focus on their groundwater and energy sources; the orchard plans to install a new pump that will use a solar array as opposed to a generator. They’re also looking into other educational resources to better align with the Next Generation Science Standards.

Feenstra’s team is now deciding which case studies to deep dive into over a longer period to track results, with the report having identified core challenges to successful implementation: insufficient infrastructure and labor, uncertainty with order fulfillment, staff turnover and language barriers. 

Meg Resler, a postdoc researcher at UC Berkeley and member of the case study team, pointed out that continued funding may be beneficial for those in the network interested in forward contracts.

In one example, a lettuce grower was able to plan production in advance for the Sacramento City Unified School District, which serves 40,711 students.

Continued funding could come from an institutionalized funding source, which the report included under policy recommendations. The report also suggests the legislature “expand existing synergistic programs that address key barriers to program sustainability and scalability” and adopt statutory language for the program that could cement objectives and guide future administrations.

On Tuesday, the program released a storymap providing interactive mapping elements and other visuals related to the evaluation outcomes.

“Selling to schools as a farmer really makes sense — they are the biggest restaurant in town,” Knight said. “They always pay their bills, and they provide this kind of regular source of income that a farmer can really rely on, and having that kind of stability in your farming operation also empowers you to maybe make some riskier decisions.”