Senate approves Sen. Vitelli bill to help schools purchase more food from local farms and producers

AUGUSTA — On Wednesday, the Senate approved a bill from Sen. Eloise Vitelli, D-Arrowsic, to help public schools purchase more fresh, healthy food from local farms and producers. An amended version of LD 636, “An Act To Encourage the Purchase of Local Foods for Public Schools,” received unanimous, bipartisan support in the Senate.

“Eating food that has been grown, raised, produced or harvested close to home has so many health, economic and environmental benefits,” said Sen. Vitelli. “We want our kids to eat well, we want our farmers to be successful, and we want to cut down on the environmental impact of shipping food. This bill helps us meet all of these goals by getting more local food on our kids’ plates.”

As amended, LD 636 would address barriers that exist within the existing Local Produce Fund by expanding the program to allow schools to purchase more local foods via other sources, like local distributors, instead of only directly from farms. It would increase the cap on reimbursement from the Department of Education to encourage more local purchasing using existing funds. It would also expand the program beyond produce to support the purchase of other local foods including meat, fish, tofu, eggs and value-added dairy products such as yogurt.

“School districts face many challenges in sourcing local food directly from farmers, and reported that they would be more likely to purchase locally if they could also do so from their contracted food service distributor,” said Anna Korsen with Full Plates Full Potential in testimony supporting the bill. “School nutrition programs also reported that expanding the products that can be purchased and reimbursed through the fund beyond only produce to include value-added dairy and protein would make it more likely that they would use the fund, since many schools already purchase these products at great cost to their program and would benefit from the reimbursement. Additionally, having access to local produce that has been peeled, chopped, and frozen would help expand school nutrition staff’s capacity to serve local foods.”

“The challenges of increasing local food in schools include cost and logistical challenges such as coordination with farms, staffing lunchrooms, and processing raw ingredients into school meals,” said Amy Gallant of the Good Shepherd Food Bank. “Despite these challenges, providing schools with locally procured food remains a high priority for many districts, and this bill is a step in the right direction.”

LD 636 faces further votes in the Legislature.