Iowa children need farm fresh foods

Recently, the Iowa Farm to School and Early Care Coalition launched the “Local Food Makes Cents: For Iowa Kids and Farmers,” a local food incentive pilot program with $43,000 in funding from the Association of State Public Health Nutritionists. Once applications opened to early care and education providers, almost 200 proposals were received with demand for funding greatly exceeding the resources that are currently available. We’ve already seen $69,000 in requests for financial support – just a portion of the demand for local food among Iowa’s early care and education providers alone.

About half of the childcare sites that submitted a proposal were awarded funds, with a majority of sites caring for children of color and children receiving Child Care Assistance. The large gap between requested funding and available funding left 2,000 Iowa children without access to snacks and meals full of nutritious, locally sourced product. With most childcare providers serving two meals and two snacks a day to the children in their care, increasing access to locally sourced products by making accommodating providers shoe-string food budgets would have a large impact on the health and wellness of Iowa’s children; the Local Food Makes Cents pilot program does just that by providing an extra 10 cents in food cost reimbursement for meals prepared with locally sourced product. Investing in child nutrition is a smart way to improve the health and economy of Iowa’s future.

Beyond Iowa’s children, the health of our agricultural economy is at stake. A 2017 USDA survey found that approximately only 5% of Iowa farmers participate in local food production, creating aggregate sales of $194 million. If more farmers participated in Iowa’s local food system, the economic gains could be exponential. Sustainable funding from the state for Farm to School and Early Care would bolster the vitality of Iowa’s children and the state’s agricultural economy.

Iowa children and farmers need state level leadership to scale and expand the success of Farm to School and Early Care that we’re seeing in pockets across Iowa. A continual allocation of state funds into a program that runs similarly to the “Local Food Makes Cents” pilot could generate a large impact on the lives of Iowa’s youngest population and those that produce the food that feeds them. Smart investments now into Iowa’s children and agricultural economy will mean health and vitality for us all.

Krista Smith is farm to early care and education coordinator for Iowa AEYC. Nathan Spalding is Iowa program associate director for FoodCorps.