Note from the Founder: Is your farm FDA-approved?

Kelly & Scott from Aramark

On a chilly October morning last fall, two of our favorite customers, Kelly and Scott from Aramark, food service provider for the Ferguson-Florissant School District, stopped by the farm to pick up a 50 lb order of fresh EarthDance produce. The sweet potatoes and sweet peppers were destined for two local elementary schools, where they would be served in the cafeterias as part of a special “taste test” to celebrate Farm-to-School Month. Assistant Farm Manager Stephanie and I would each accompany one of the lunchtime taste tests so that we could talk to students about how the veggies were grown, and so that they could meet a farmer.

Farm Manager Josh Mueller gave Scott and Kelly a tour of our operation that morning, and after hearing about the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, whereby members pick up weekly shares of fresh veggies for 24 weeks of the season, Scott thought that purchasing five or six shares would be a great way to introduce a variety of seasonal produce into the school lunches served to our neighboring youth. I was exuberant. “Yes!” I thought, “This is exactly the kind of partnership that could begin to make a difference in our young people’s vegetable vocabulary.” It was especially fitting that the day happened to be Food Day, a nationwide celebration of healthy, affordable, and sustainable food. What a remarkable way to celebrate!

EarthDance Produce in SchoolsWith spring on our heels, registration for our CSA program is well underway (and in fact, almost full!), so we have been eager to solidify our CSA partnership with the district. Just when I thought the pending transaction was miraculously bureaucracy-free, I received an email from Kelly (who serves as the food service dietitian) asking whether our farm was FDA-approved. Now I’ve heard of GAP-certification, organic certification, HAACP plans, and many other processes that attest to a farm’s competency for both following proper food handling guidelines and filling out paperwork. But I hadn’t heard of gaining FDA-approval. (Although this instantly made me wonder if doctors could write prescriptions for local organic produce if the farm was FDA-approved!)

Since doing further investigation as to what FDA-approval for a farm means, it seems that the primary thing that a farm of our size and scale needs to create and implement is a Food Safety Plan. Lucky for us, Lincoln University hosted a two-day workshop on this very topic in November for area growers, and brought leaders of the Produce Safety Alliance from Cornell University in to present on the importance of food safety and what that entails for small farmers. Following the workshop, our staff completed our own Food Safety Plan. The main theme is sanitation, and another key point is traceability: to be able to trace your produce one step backward (i.e. from which field) and one step forward (to which customer).

Another hurdle that the school district’s food service team has to jump is to figure out how and where the fresh raw vegetables would be processed. Many school cafeterias (across the country, not just FFSD) are unequipped to handle fresh food. Most food purchases are pre-washed, pre-cut, and often even pre-cooked and pre-packaged. And last but not least, the district’s insurance provider is not sure whether they want to take on the risk of serving food grown on a nearby farm. (Have any of you who are serving locally-grown foods in schools come across that? It’d be great to hear about how you handled the topic of liability.)

I am hopeful that we will all be able to jump through these hoops to achieve our initial goal set forth when Scott and Kelly visited the farm: to serve our local school children healthy local produce, on a consistent basis. The local food movement is where it is today because of people like Scott and Kelly who are going the extra mile to make a unique partnership like this work. I wanted to share this process here so that you, our reader, have a fuller understanding of the challenges facing the local food movement. We have work to do.

For local FARMS,
Molly Rockamann
Founding Director