Speak up for Farm to School

Recent cuts hurt farms and schools and students

Recently, USDA announced the cancellation of Local Food for Schools (LFS) cooperative agreements. In Kentucky, this program financed purchasing food from local farmers for school meals. Kentucky’s Department of Agriculture received $3.2 million for LFS. Through LFS funding, more than 200 Kentucky farmers in at least 65 counties sold farm foods to 92 school districts for use in school meals. Previously, a new round of funds had been announced for the next 3 years, but that plan is now cancelled. With the prior agreement drying up at the end of April, that leaves schools and farmers hung out to dry.

Keep reading for farmer impacts and how you can speak up for farm to school.

Farmer Shana Johnson, Hancock County

“This was a win-win-win situation and I don’t understand why the funding was cut. Why would you want to take away from students, staff, and local farmers a system that was working? Shouldn’t health be one of the most important components to funds? Shouldn’t supporting local farmers be an important component to funds? Let’s work together to bring back this win-win-win situation!!”

Speak up for Farm to School

Social Media

Tell your story on social media. If you would like to share your LFS experience, please consider linking your story to our campaign. In your post (either photo and text or short 30 second - 2 minute video), include the following questions to share your experience: 

  1. What was your interaction with LFS? Are you school staff? a parent? a student? a taxpayer who likes investments in farms and quality school food? If you’re a farmer, consider using Community Farm Alliance’s LFS story collector.

  2. How did LFS funds impact you?

  3. What do you want USDA leadership to know about investing in local food systems and the farmers who fuel them?

  4. Link to the whole campaign by using hashtags and @  

    a. On Facebook, tag the network pages:

 @KYF2SNetwork

b. Use this hashtag: #KentuckyLFSstory 

c. Tag the USDA’s secretary of agriculture: on instagram: @brookelrollins on X: @SecRollins

d. Tag your local news media to get their attention.

e. Tag your congressional representatives.

News Media

The cancellation of these programs has gotten a lot of national press. We’d like to get the Kentucky-specific impacts some coverage. Two farmers who submitted stories to us were recently included in a Lexington Herald Leader article: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article302786789.html

Reach out to your local news media outlets (newspaper, radio, local TV news) to share your story. Or write a letter to the editor. Please let us know if you would like some assistance with news media outreach.

Speak to your Members of Congress

You can also contact your members of Congress to express your support for local food in schools. In Kentucky, you have two state Senators, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell represent all of Kentucky, plus your member of the House of Representatives, either Comer, Guthrie, McGarvey, Massie, Rogers or Barr. You can call, email or ask for a meeting with your representative. You may not get to meet in person with your member of Congress, but you may get a meeting with their staff in an office local to you. If you don’t feel confident or don’t know where to start in meeting with your elected officials, CFA staff would be glad to meet with you to come up with a plan or help you schedule a meeting or even go with you to meet with your representatives.