Farm to School Programs in Southeastern Michigan: Impacts Beyond the...

Farm to School, a program that sources local produce in school cafeteria meals, has the potential to catalyze change in America’s current food system.  As a relatively new initiative, however, its true potential cannot be understood without sufficient research and evidence of its realized effects.  Formal research on the Farm to School program is expanding, but few evaluative studies have measured parental behavior changes. Much of the published literature has addressed the program’s direct impacts, specifically changes in students’ fruit and vegetable consumption, school meal participation, and student knowledge and attitudes related to healthy eating. With program implementation rapidly increasing in districts nationwide, it is now necessary to examine its indirect effects as well, specifically the program’s effects on behaviors at home. Using comparative case studies in two southeast Michigan middle schools, this project will assess whether FTS programs influence the eating, shopping, and cooking habits of students and their parents. I hypothesize that the longer a program has existed in a school district, the more likely it is that students have knowledge of and interest in eating locally and seasonally, and that parents shop for more local items, cook fresh foods more frequently, and eat dinners as a family more often. The study will conclude with recommendations for program improvement and future research needs.