Kathleen Merrigan, former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, spoke during an event celebrating the Vermont Community Foundation’s Food and Farm grant program at the West Monitor Barn in Richmond on Thursday. Photo by John Herrick/VTDigger
RICHMOND — Food education should be part of all schools’ curriculum, says Kathleen Merrigan, former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Merrigan, who led USDA’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” campaign before retiring in March, came to the West Monitor Barn in Richmond on Thursday evening to celebrate the Vermont Community Foundation’s grant program designed to use schools as the centerpiece of the state’s effort to promote local foods.
She said children should have more time to connect and learn about food in the classroom – not just the 20 minutes they have for lunch and recess.
“It brings to bear this whole question about how do we make lunchtime classroom time,” Merrigan said. “So it’s not time off from school, but it really is part of school, and that we build into the curriculum time to have a meaningful experience in the cafeteria.”
Vermont Community Foundation’s Food and Farm Initiative, the main focus of Thursday’s event, is designed, in part, to bring food from Vermont farms into schools. The foundation works with donors and community groups to provide financial support and consultation for programs and projects around the state.
The foundation distributed nearly $300,000 to six programs, schools and organizations to enhance food security in the state last year, said Janet McLaughlin, special projects director for the foundation.
Schools can serve as a hub between farmers and the community, both educating and providing healthy food to children and families, during a time when 20 percent of Vermont children are hungry, she said.
Katherine Sims, founder and executive director Green Mountain Farm-to-School, a program designed to strengthen local food systems in the state, said schools can play a key role in solving food insecurity.
“The school is the model,” she said.
The school, Sims said, serves as a distribution center where kids and families can learn about food and cooking and choose healthy meals sourced from the farms around the state.
Just as math, science and history are part of a child’s everyday curriculum, food should be as well, she said.
Green Mountain Farm-to-School received a $36,750 grant from the foundation. The grant was used, in part, to launch a “Harvest of the Month Campaign” designed to join the classroom, cafeteria and community in an effort to educate families about the value of local food and to be a distribution center for those products.
Merrigan came to Vermont to celebrate the state’s leadership on reforming food and agricultural systems, a task not easy in Vermont’s harsh climate, she said.
“You have a state here that doesn’t necessary always have the climate,” she said. “And yet, it’s sort of that driven Vermonter in all of you that have really made things happen beyond rationality, in some ways.”
She said money will likely become available for programs that seek to put food learning into preschoolers’ curricula, a plan that has gained the attention of the USDA.
The Vermont Community Foundation recently released a report detailing the challenges to farming and healthy eating in Vermont, titled “Local Food for Healthy Communities: Bringing Food Security to All Vermonters.”
The report finds that farmers in the state lack advanced business skills and do not have the necessary infrastructure to distribute and produce food competitively. Part of the report advocates using schools to bring local food to the community.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Former USDA official touts food education for schools.