‘Kids are actually eating the food’: State expands lunch program that pairs schools with farms

California is making permanent a program that pairs schools with local farms, and per CalMatters, the results speak volumes: kids are actually eating their lunch. The Farm to School initiative, which launched in twenty twenty-one and now reaches five hundred school districts, funds fresh, local meals and sends cafeteria workers to culinary training. At Tahoe-Truckee Unified, students line up for rambutans and shout for more pozole. The program stabilizes markets for nearly six hundred small farmers, and the state estimates every dollar invested yields two dollars and ten cents in local economic growth. With over one billion dollars spent since twenty twenty-one, California is setting a national standard for what school food can be.

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