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CHAPTER 04: PRIORITY OUTCOMES, INDICATORS AND MEASURES49A Community Economic Development Lens for Farmto SchoolThrough a community economic development lens, theprocurement of local and regional products by schools, andthe education of children and communities about local andregional products, thereby creating a demand, are the criticalgoals of farm to school activities. In addition to small and midsizedproducers, farm to school may specifically benefit thosewho have historically lacked equal access to the traditional foodsystem, such as lower income individuals, women and peopleof color, and those in rural areas. Farm to school in the contextof community economic development provides opportunitiesto explore equity-related considerations in the food system,such as living wages, professional development, safe workingconditions and equal marketing opportunities.Jan Tusick of the Mission Mountain Food EnterpriseCenter, a division of Lake County CommunityDevelopment Corporation in Montana, says, “Farm toschool has resulted in a 40 percent increase in revenuefor the center, and created two new jobs needed forprocessing additional product.” She adds, “The WesternMontana Growers Cooperative has seen their sales growby $40,000 in the last quarter through farm to schoolalone. It is a win-win for everyone. I don’t know why anyschool district board would not approve farm to schoolto be at their schools.” 39—Local Farms, Local Kids: A Montana Farm to School MovieFarm to school activities emphasize “local” in relation tocommunity economies because of the “import substitution”concept 40,41 . Economies grow and are sustained by exportinggoods and by producing goods they would normally importto avoid “leaking” dollars into external economies. Local foodcan potentially “plug the leak” of dollars that would normallybe used to buy items from external economies and keeplocal dollars recirculating in a community’s economy 40,41 . Anemerging challenge in farm to school procurement is that assome programs “scale up” and incorporate more local productin school meals, their demand surpasses the local capacity tomeet that need 42 .Farm to school activities may influence community economicdevelopment outcomes at multiple levels of the socioecologicalmodel. Examples are illustrated in Figure 9.Economic Development:The World Bank describes local economicdevelopment as offering local government,the private and nonprofit sectors and localcommunities the opportunity to worktogether to improve the local economy 12 . Itfocuses on helping businesses become morecompetitive, increasing sustainable growthand ensuring that growth is inclusive.The purpose of local community economicdevelopment is to build up economiccapacity of a local area to improve itseconomic future and the quality of lifefor all. It is a process by which the public,businesses and nongovernmental sectorspartner to create better conditions foreconomic growth and employmentgeneration 12 . Community economicdevelopment in relation to farm to schoolsupports organizations working together tosupport the local community food system.Local:What is “local” in farm to schoolprocurement? “Local” is based onunique circumstances of the schoolsite. Considerations include geography,climate, growing season and availabilityof agricultural products for use in schools.Schools may define “local” as within acertain number of miles from the school,within the county or within the state.Alternatively, definitions might includemore than one state (i.e., Georgia, Alabamaand Florida) or discrete parts of severalstates (i.e., specific counties in southwestWashington, northeast Oregon andIdaho) 13–15 . For example, the 2008 Food,Conservation and Energy Act of 2008defined local and regionally produced foodproducts as those that are “raised, producedor distributed so that the total distance thatthe product is transported is less than 400miles from the origin of the product or thestate in which the product is produced.”NATIONAL FARM TO SCHOOL NETWORK