Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), with support from Mass. Farm to School Project and Farm to Institution New England, has recently completed a 4-page handout titled, “Tools for Advocates: Increasing Local Food Procurement by State Agencies, Colleges, and Universities.”  Click here to read the document. The report summarizes research conducted over a two year […]

Fall in Massachusetts is peak harvest time: apples and pears are ripening in the orchards and vegetables are ready in the fields.  Students throughout the Commonwealth will be savoring these locally grown foods as part of Mass. Farm to School Project’s 7th annual Harvest for Students Week September 30 – October 4, 2013. During Harvest […]

It’s been a busy year at the Worcester Kindergarten Initiative! The initiative, which is facilitated by the Massachusetts Farm to School Project in conjunction with the Worcester Public Schools, is a multidisciplinary nutritional education program that aims to teach kindergarteners about healthy eating and local farms in a fun, hands-on way. Last week’s field trips […]

Last week Mass. Farm to School Project’s Farm to Cafeteria Director, Simca Horwitz, attended the annual conference of the National Farm to School Network in Omaha, Nebraska.  Mass. Farm to School is one of the founding members of the Network, which now has representation from all 50 states and Washington, DC.  The Network was founded […]

Here at Mass. Farm to School Project we are thrilled to welcome Lisa Damon to our staff. As the new Farm to Cafeteria Coordinator Lisa works with farmers, food service operators, food distributors, and farm to school advocates in central and western Mass. to assist in local food procurement efforts. Lisa grew up on a […]

At Mass. Farm to School we see the work we do as part of a larger movement to build a vibrant local food system. A local food system is far stronger and more resilient than one that depends on long-distance travel and a lack of direct relationships between consumers and growers of food. The resiliency […]

On a handful of (mostly) sunny days in October, all 400+ kindergarten students at our five Worcester Kindergarten Initiative schools went on field trips to one of two local farms – either Clearview Farm in Sterling or Breezy Gardens in Leicester. Students experienced firsthand working, local farms—riding on hay wagons, picking their own sugar pumpkins, learning […]

We were thrilled to learn last week that the Mass. Farm to School Project was among the USDA’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program recipients.  MFTS will receive two grants; one for $50,000 for our project “Digging Deeper: More Specialty Crops In More Cafeterias for More Of The Year” and $24,000 for the Worcester Kindergarten Initiative’s […]

Last week, September 17th to 21st, schools and colleges across the state celebrated the 6th annual Mass. Harvest for Students Week in a big way! Our staff spent the week visiting schools, talking to press, and coordinating events from Cape Cod to the Berkshires. We are so proud of all the food service directors and […]