eval report cover.indd - New Jersey Farm to School Network Wiki

III. Review of Farm to SchoolEvaluation LiteratureOf the more than two thousand farm to school programs operational in 2008, only afew have been evaluated thus far. We reviewed and collated information from 38 resourcesincluding evaluation or program reports and articles representing a total of 23programs. Information was also collated from other farm to school related publicationsand resources, with the objective of finding commonalities and trends that could becited as impacts of the farm to school model. Th e 38 reports and evaluation findingsincluded in this review met our definition of farm to school: conducting local purchasingin addition to one other component of farm to school, and which had evaluationdata available through reports released before July 2007. Table 2 provides a list of theprograms included and the categories under which data has been cited from these programs.We acknowledge that there may be programs meeting the above criteria that we wereeither unaware of or were unable to track and include in this report. However, the 38program reports and evaluations selected and cited in this publication represent a varietyof evaluation methodologies employed by farm to school programs across the country.The fi n dings have been described based on the evaluation categories establishedin the previous section. A brief program profile highlighting information relevant forunderstanding the evaluation findings is presented for each program cited (see ProgramProfiles).Review of Farm to School Evaluation Literaturewww.farmtoschool.org 23