Schools, farmers, state push vegetables from farms to school

MAT-SU — It seems like a perfect combo for student lunches — healthy foods from local farms. But while local school officials and the farm community are eager to promote the combination, there’s a chasm neither side seems able to cross — processing.

In an effort to bridge the gap, the Division of Agriculture’s Farm to School Program hosted two recent tours of Palmer produce farms for members of the food service staffs from the two largest school districts in Alaska — Anchorage and Mat-Su.

While years ago there would be plenty of staff to peel and slice in any school kitchen, nowadays meals are prepared in a central school district kitchen with limited staff that uses plenty of pre-cut, pre-processed foods. That leaves something as simple as a raw potato, which Alaska farms grow in abundance, unable to make the grade.

What the two groups need, explained Jo Dawson with Child Nutrition Services of the state Department of Education and Early Development, is someone in the middle to process the fresh foods without adding exorbitant cost.

“That’s the biggest obstacle in the schools right now,” Dawson said. “It needs to be ready to heat or ready to eat.”

Without a processing facility that slices and dices, and even blanches and freezes, the schools can’t use farm-fresh Alaska Grown products, a situation that doesn’t please either the school officials or the large growers who could sell to the districts.

It’s a situation that frustrates Chris Johnson, nutrition services supervisor for the Mat-Su Borough School District.

“Produce has a very, very limited shelf life and it’s only available at the very start of the school year, so we are very limited with the local vegetables we can use,” Johnson said. “We understand we get good quality local stuff.”

When they can’t get it, they must rely on Outside supplies, even for vegetables that grow well in Alaska.

Brent Rock, director of student nutrition for Anchorage School District, said the Anchorage School Board has expressed an interest in supporting state agriculture.

“I think we’d jump into the arena if it’s a product we can use,” Rock said at Tuesday’s tour for the Anchorage nutrition staff to Palmer Produce in the Butte.

Rock said his school district has neither the equipment nor the manpower to process Alaska vegetables. But Rock said the district might consider adding the staff if the state Division of Agriculture ponied up money for some equipment, which Division of Agriculture’s Amy Pettit said might be a possibility.

“We hear this is the barrier,” Pettit said Tuesday. “That’s what we are here for — to take down those barriers.”

Ben VanderWeele, whose Palmer vegetable operation may be the largest in the state, said he sees it as a matter of priorities at a time when childhood obesity is epidemic.

“The younger generation is not looking any healthier,” VanderWeele said. “Why don’t we serve them fresh Alaska Grown vegetables? It may cost a couple more pennies. Someone has to convince the school board it’s worth it.”

VanderWeele Farms has produce in area schools — most notably its “baby” carrots, which are peeled, cut into small pieces and bagged. Anchorage School District uses about 1,200 pounds a week of the carrots. Together, Anchorage and Mat-Su use about five to six tons of Alaska carrots each school year.

“We buy them whenever they are available,” Johnson said.

VanderWeele said he’d consider adding equipment to wedge potatoes for school use, too, but adding processing equipment for limited-harvest crops like broccoli isn’t cost-effective for the farm.

ASD staffers said they’d be interested in serving roasted potato wedges; however, new USDA nutrition guidelines for schools to be instituted in 2012 classify potatoes and peas — another Alaska crop — as starches, with no more than one cup served each week. Rock and Johnson said many entities are fighting the stringent new regulations, but for now, it is the reality for which the schools must prepare.

Alaska crops like zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and kale would meet the new school nutrition criteria, but they are largely harvested when school isn’t in session. That means they’d have to be processed for use during the school year. Both ASD and Mat-Su have large freezers, but no facilities for the necessary blanching, shredding or other processing of the crops.

While it was not discussed at Tuesday’s meeting, a proposed processing center in Palmer might provide the missing link. But that processing center, a study for which was funded by a federal grant through the Mat-Su Borough, remains a concept without funding.

Efforts by the Alaska Farm Bureau, Mat-Su Borough, state and federal officials and others to move the project forward continue.

Deb Stromstad, coordinator at ASD’s nutrition center, said she noticed the empty old Carr’s store in Palmer.

“You could put a processing plant in there,” Stromstad said.

If Alaska vegetables can undergo the processing the schools need to use them, and ASD nutritionists have a long list of vegetables they’d like to use: radishes, dark leafy greens, zucchini, cucumbers, cabbage, bok choy, cauliflower, broccoli, celery and more. They admit, however, they aren’t sure how they’d serve some of the vegetables and if students would eat them. But, they said, they’d be willing to develop recipes and try.

Johnson said he’d be planning his menus around whatever local products he could buy if he knew when he could get them and if the prices would keep him within his budget constraints.

There is a bigger picture that everyone needs to consider, Johnson said: the overall market for Alaska and beyond.

“I think everybody is looking at this a little shortsighted,” Johnson said. “It (school populations) shouldn’t be the only market.”

He said he’s encouraged about the fledgling Farm to School program and its efforts to get everyone together to look at cooperative efforts and solutions.

“There are things that can be done,” Johnson added.