Farm to School in Minnesota

Participate in Minnesota Thursdays (October 3) and the Great Lakes Great Apple Crunch (October 10). Register by Sept 30 to receive FREE Crunch stickers and a chance to have Minnesota Timberwolves Mascot Crunch lead your crunch in person! Register here

MDA is accepting applications for the AGRI Farm to School and Farm to Early Care and Education Grants to increase the use of Minnesota grown and raised foods through planning and feasibility studies, or equipment purchases and physical improvements. Learn more

Contributed by: Jill Westlund, Saint Paul Public Schools
Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS) is thrilled to announce that they were awarded a $100,000 USDA Farm to School implementation grant for the “Grow Our Own” project for school gardens! “Grow Our Own”, or GROW, is a project that connects school gardens to classrooms, cafeteria and community. SPPS and Youth Farm, an organization that uses food as a tool for youth development opportunities via urban agriculture and cooking classes, have partnered to increase food & ag educational opportunities.

A recent grant from the Cargill Foundation allows this team to work with a third partner, Renewing the Countryside (RTC), to incorporate early childhood exposure to school gardens and farm to table activities.

The funding from USDA will support this project in two critical ways. First, the project will provide funds to individual schools to test and evaluate the School Garden Handbook. These schools will be able to build a new garden, …

Contributed by: Natalie Hoidal, University of Minnesota Extension
The University of Minnesota Extension has created four new positions in horticulture over the past two years. These educators work together to support fruit and vegetable producers in topics ranging from food safety to soil health to integrated pest management and more.  If your organization works directly with farmers, please help spread the word that these educators are available for technical assistance.

Annalisa Hultberg is a statewide Extension Educator focusing on on-farm food safety education, outreach and research related to Good Agricultural Practices, or GAPs, with fruit and vegetable producers around the state. She is the state lead for the trainings and education around the new federal Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule for fruit and vegetable farmers. She also enjoys helping farmers who need a GAP audit to sell to places like grocery stores, wholesale distributors, or school food servi…