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Good News Out of the USDA
It may truly be a new era for the USDA when it comes to school lunch. Yes, the department is still closely linked to the meat and dairy lobbies, and it still issues dozens of regulations that don’t make sense. But school meals — and healthy school meals, at that — are getting more attention than they have in years.
Last week, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan released a memo about using USDA programs to support local food systems. Merrigan wrote that she hopes to “play the role of matchmaker during this administration,” linking existing USDA programs with local and regional food initiatives. She imagines organizations using USDA money to create community kitchens and give cooking classes. She imagines communities taking advantage of department grants to build structures to house farmers markets. And she imagines schools using USDA funds to renovate cafeterias and purchase local foods.
“Imagine a school using USDA loan money to set up cold storage as part of a larger effort to retrofit the school cafeteria to buy produce directly from farmers and return cooking capacity for school lunch,” she writes. These are words you don’t hear often out of the USDA.
On top of Merrigan’s efforts, the department is continuing its Team Nutrition Training Grant program, which provides state agencies with funds for foodservice technical assistance, training and nutrition education. The USDA yesterday distributed $5.8 million in nutrition grants to 18 states. That’s about $1 million more than it gave out last year.
This is all very exciting news. What I’d like to see now is a National School Lunch Program that encapsulates all these grant initiatives, so that they become the norm, and not just opportunities for motivated schools.
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