The Big Idea: School Supported Agriculture
What if we harnessed the educational and procurement power of school lunch?
Food and education are universal: Everyone eats. And every child goes to school, or should. With 4.9 billion lunches and 2.5 billion breakfasts prepared and served annually by K-12 schools to our nation’s children (let alone globally), the potential impact of school food production as a mechanism for a larger shift in our food systems is tremendous. All it takes is one reliable buyer committed to treating its producers as partners to unlock new local markets for regenerative organic food. The reliable demand of tens of thousands of schools distributed across the country would provide the bedrock of nationwide local regenerative supply chains on top of which restaurants, groceries, medical centers, and other institutions could then build. This would stimulate rural economies and reshape our agricultural landscape all at once, with food scraps even going directly back to farms as compost. Inspired by community supported agriculture, we call this SCHOOL SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE.
With school supported agriculture, schools become a partner, not just a buyer, committed in advance to buying everything that’s produced by farmers, ranchers, tortilla-makers, bakers, and other local producers. This is key. There’s no middleman demanding producers sell wholesale, so producers get the real cost of the food, which includes paying farmworkers properly and taking care of the land. These two shifts in procurement fix the two largest impediments to regenerative organic producers: having a reliable buyer and getting a price that covers their real costs.
When sourced this way, school lunch is also uniquely suited to nourish our next generation – both with nutritious food and with the values they need to live on and lead the planet: community, equity, and stewardship.