FNS Documents & Resources

Farm to preschool works to connect early child care and education settings to local food producers with the objectives of serving locally-grown, healthy foods to young children, providing related nutrition education, and improving child nutrition.

In many regions across the United States, USDA’s Summer Food Service Program aligns well with the peak growing season, allowing schools and nonprofit organizations to serve products in their freshest state.

Plan your Farm to School program using the new Farm to Child Nutrition Programs Planning Guide. This guide uses the same concepts below to create a robust farm to school program for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), School Breakfast Program (SBP), Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and Seamless Summer Option (SSO), and Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).

The Farm to School Planning Toolkit guides you though questions to consider and helpful resources to reference when starting or growing a farm to school program. It is designed for use by schools, school districts, and community partners. The toolkit is filled with tips and examples, insights from others, and lists of resources for further research. Each school district is unique, so browse the topics to find the resources most relevant to you and your implementation team!

Watch this new video to learn how farm to school is making a difference all across the country. Take one small step and share this video across your networks!

From beef and bison in Montana to apples in Michigan and radishes in Rhode Island, local foods are on the menu. The resources on this page will help ensure child nutrition program operators have the resources and knowledge necessary to incorporate local foods into their day-to-day operations. While many of the resources featured here were developed with K-12 schools in mind, much of the information is equally relevant to early childcare facilities and summer feeding sites.

Throughout the U.S, farm to school initiatives are taking root and thriving at local, regional, and statewide levels. According to the USDA Farm to School Census, during the 2014-2015 school year, over 5,200 school districts comprised of more than 42,000 schools were buying local food and teaching children about agriculture. Many state agencies are at the forefront of this work, leading their state’s farm to school planning and goal setting. Indeed, state agencies such as Departments of Education, Departments of Agriculture, and Departments of Health can play unique roles in establishing and supporting these community food systems efforts. Attached, are a few effective strategies USDA recommends state agencies implement to support farm to school initiatives in their states.

The Farm to Child Nutrition Planning Guide directs you through questions to consider when starting or growing a farm to school, farm to child care, or farm to summer program. This planning guide should be used as a supplemental tool to the Farm to School Planning Toolkit. This guide can be updated annually to ensure you are working towards your long-term goals.

Co-hosted by USDA FNS’s Team Nutrition initiative and the Office of Community Food Systems on October 25, 2018, this hour-long webinar focuses on how local foods and nutrition and food education can be incorporated in CACFP settings.