UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
King, Benjamin
Dept./Program:
Community Development and Applied Economics
Year:
2010
Degree:
MS
Abstract:
School food services involved in farm to school (FTS) programs generally procure locally produced foods through two distinct strategies: either through food distribution companies or directly from farmers. These two strategies require different levels of logistical and financial commitment by school food services as well as farmers; direct procurement generally requires more commitment, while distributor-mediated procurement generally requires less. A comprehensive literature review compares these two strategies, both in terms of their logistical feasibility and their likelihood of accomplishing the most prominently articulated aims of FTS programs. While direct purchasing is the most challenging procurement method for school food services and farmers, it also provides the best opportunities for allowing students experientially educational access to the producers of the food they eat in school meals. Such access is considered to be an important means of increasing students' preferences for healthful, locally produced foods.
Article 1: The problematic but valuable partnerships required by direct local food procurement in FTS programs necessitate the high-maintenance participation of both school food service professionals and farmers. Analysis of data from a survey of Vermont farmers who sell directly to school food services explores farmers' motivations and logistical practices in these partnerships. A two-step cluster procedure characterizes farmers' motivations along a continuum between market-based and socially embedded values, first applied in FTS 'research by Izumi et al. (2009). Further bivariate analysis shows that farmers who are motivated most by market-based values are significantly associated with certain logistical practices that facilitate their sales to school food services. This analysis also suggests that farmers who gain from these sales can potentially support educationally meaningful yet scale-appropriate strategies for local food procurement in FTS programs.
Article 2: FTS programs' locally driven and innovative nature makes them difficult to support through school food services' ordinary means. A multi-scale governance network map depicts the diverse actors, institutions, and relationships throughout the broader school food procurement system that affect the functioning of a typical FTS program. Showing the transfer of food commodities, financial resources, information, and regulatory power between relevant actors and institutions, this holistic account describes how these entities construct the status quo of the school food procurement system. As such, the map can aid practitioners, researchers, and policymakers in understanding how actual and potential coordination of policies and actions might benefit FTS programs.
Article 1: The problematic but valuable partnerships required by direct local food procurement in FTS programs necessitate the high-maintenance participation of both school food service professionals and farmers. Analysis of data from a survey of Vermont farmers who sell directly to school food services explores farmers' motivations and logistical practices in these partnerships. A two-step cluster procedure characterizes farmers' motivations along a continuum between market-based and socially embedded values, first applied in FTS 'research by Izumi et al. (2009). Further bivariate analysis shows that farmers who are motivated most by market-based values are significantly associated with certain logistical practices that facilitate their sales to school food services. This analysis also suggests that farmers who gain from these sales can potentially support educationally meaningful yet scale-appropriate strategies for local food procurement in FTS programs.
Article 2: FTS programs' locally driven and innovative nature makes them difficult to support through school food services' ordinary means. A multi-scale governance network map depicts the diverse actors, institutions, and relationships throughout the broader school food procurement system that affect the functioning of a typical FTS program. Showing the transfer of food commodities, financial resources, information, and regulatory power between relevant actors and institutions, this holistic account describes how these entities construct the status quo of the school food procurement system. As such, the map can aid practitioners, researchers, and policymakers in understanding how actual and potential coordination of policies and actions might benefit FTS programs.