Farm to School: A Market Analysis

Marissa C. Watson, Cesar Escalante (), Glenn C.W. Ames, Kent Wolfe and Sharon Kane

No 119776, 2012 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2012, Birmingham, Alabama from Southern Agricultural Economics Association

Abstract: This paper explores the potential for the National Farm to School Program to effectively engage with Georgia’s public schools in order to reduce local food insecurity and improve the quality of nutrition provided to students. A survey was conducted with the specific goals of assessing: first, the current and future impact Farm to School has and will potentially have on the Georgia economy through schools purchase of local foods; second, the potential market for farmers; third, school administrators willingness to buy local food by Georgia; forth, the level of infrastructure available within schools to prepare fresh, whole foods; and fifth, the perceived opportunities and challenges to buying and preparing local food. University of Georgia collaborated with the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Organics to develop a survey that met the objectives as defined above. There were twenty-five questions total and most answers were formatted in a multiple-choice selection with an option to write any additional comments. The survey was distributed by the Department of Education to 158 public schools in Georgia, and collected, a total of 93 responses. From the data, it was concluded that the willingness to participate exists, as well as the tools necessary for participation. What appears to be missing is the infrastructure that would allow schools to purchase food easily and frequently. Most schools noted that they would be willing to interact with an online platform that would put them in contact with local growers and sellers.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/119776/files/Farm%20to%20School.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:saea12:119776

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.119776

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2012 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2012, Birmingham, Alabama from Southern Agricultural Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().