More locally grown fruits, vegetables and proteins could be on the lunch tables of Missouri schools under a House bill that seeks to establish a state farm-to-school program.
The program would be headed by a Department of Agriculture employee, who would serve as a liaison between school districts and Missouri farmers. The liaison would maintain a website serving as a database to connect schools with producers and help seek funding from grants and private donors.
The bill, sponsored by House minority leader Jacob Hummel, D-St. Louis, has gained support from a bipartisan group of more than 20 lawmakers and received a favorable hearing Tuesday from the House Agriculture Policy Committee.
"We can have our kids in Missouri eating the food we grow in Missouri. I think it's a pretty common sense piece of legislation," Hummel said at the hearing.
Already, 29 percent of Missouri districts participate in farm-to-school programs and 15 percent are looking to start soon, Hummel told the committee. But those districts face inconsistent rules about bidding and contracting for local produce and a lack of resources to help connect with local farmers.
Hummel and other proponents sold the program as an effective way to promote healthy eating to students, teach them about farming and where their food comes from and support local farmers and agricultural businesses.
Ronda McCullick, director of food service operations at Park Hill School District near Kansas City, testified in favor of the bill and told the committee her district wanted to source more food from local producers but struggled connecting with those farmers.
"I think we have a huge opportunity in the state, and school districts want to work with farmers but they don't have the resources or expertise to do it," she said.
The intent of the bill is to establish is a systematic way to build relationships between schools and the farmers close to them, including a website that would have a database of farmers, the products they had available and when those products would be in season.
Rep. Linda Black, D-Desloge, said she was concerned with how the state's growing season matched up with the school year and the difficulty of creating a consistent supply of food for school districts. McCullick said that was a challenge, but that her district worked with farmers to buy and freeze fruits, store some produce throughout the year and encourage farmers to use hoop houses and other tools to grow year-round.
"We are growing it, but we don't know how to get together with the schools," said Renee Seba, who grows blackberries and strawberries and sells them to the Park Hill district.
Seba said the bill would help provide farmers consistent rules for contracting with schools as well as the resources to grow the infrastructure needed to supply schools by offering grants.
The bill would not create any new funding streams, but does include a fiscal note for the cost of one full-time employee to help administer the program.
Committee chair Bill Reiboldt, R-Neosho, said he will include it in the committee's omnibus agriculture bill that he intended to send to the floor.