This database contains categorized farm to institution resources relevant to New England, including COVID-19. Selection is guided by FINE's resource filter. Have one that we should include? Email us.
A Snapshot from the National Farm to School Network on the benefits of farm to school activity, incuding economic development, public health, education, environment, and community engagement
This document highlights three Massachusetts farm to school programs at Webster Public Schools, Chicopee Public Schools, and Somerville Public Schools. These case studies showcase specific farm to school projects in each district and demonstrates how these programs are creating financial impact and connecting students to food through classroom and garden activity.
Colleges and universities across the United States and around the world are scrambling to keep their students, faculty, and staff healthy, safe, and educated during the COVID-19 pandemic. As experts on the daily crises that derail #RealCollege students and prevent them from completing their degrees the team at the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice offers considerations and resources to support your work.
On May 28, 2015, nine participants from New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine attended a tour of the Black River Produce warehouse and the Vermont Packinghouse facility in North Springfield, Vermont. This blog post highlights 7 things we learned during the tour that we think might be particularly useful to farmers and folks who work in the food system
This publication offers examples and insight into the farm to institution world. Farmers, food-service managers, and community members can use this publication to gain knowledge and resources about how to begin or expand a farm to institution program.
A report examining: specific institutional strategies and investments by Massachusetts fishing ports, with the assistance of state agencies, that will maximize economic growth and development of the Massachusetts seafood and coastal economy; and appropriate roles and contributions of the University of Massachusetts campuses, as anchor institutions, in these port- based initiatives
This report shares the results of a 2015 survey of New England Campuss and universities with dining services. The report presents in-depth findings and makes specific, data-based recommendations for institutions of higher education as well as government officials, funders, and institutions.
This webinar highlights some of the key recommendations made in our report, Campus Dining 201: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Farm to Campus in New England, and then feature two examples of work already being done to address those recommendations on campuses in New England.
The report summarizes the results of FINE’s 2018 survey of New England Campuss and universities with dining services. The survey was a follow-up to our 2015 survey and report which established a baseline understanding of local procurement on Campus campuses in New England and has informed our research and programmatic efforts since its release. The 2018 survey asked many of the same questions about local procurement activity, as well as additional questions about tracking local foods, regional food definitions, training and technical assistance needs, and the relationship between dining services and campus food pantry programs.
Campus farms serve an important purpose in both academia and the local food movement. They work at the intersection of food justice, environmental sustainability, and healthy eating. In addition to providing meaningful opportunities for students to participate in food production, campus farms can also be on-site learning labs for a range of academic disciplines. During this webinar, Katrina Light from Bard College, Todd McLane from Tompkins-Cortland Community College, and Jeremy Oldfield from Yale University join us to talk about the campus farms they manage. We will explore how each of these campus farms adapt to expand engagement opportunities with students, staff, faculty, administration, and community stakeholders.
Many campuses and universities offer subscription programs or other alternative models to provide local foods to their students, staff, and faculty. Three new FINE case studies provide an overview of three of these programs and offer great models for others to consider. Brown Market Shares Program began by offering subsidized shares to Brown Dining employees. In the program’s ten years of operation, it still offers subsidized shares to various Brown University employees while making sustainable food more available to the Brown community and supporting a handful of local farms. The Brown Market Shares Program (BMSP) hosts over 400 shares while offering shares that are 10 percent cheaper than than the average CSA share in Rhode Island.
As one of the oldest CSA programs in the country, Hampshire College offers a vegetable and meat share from its on-campus farm to students, staff and faculty, and provides job opportunities for students.
Intervale Food Hub (IFH), an enterprise of the Intervale Center, works with colleges in the Burlington, Vermont area to deliver weekly local food subscriptions featuring produce, meat, cheese, and other value-added products from over 30 Vermont farmers and producers directly to students. Their college-specific spring and fall subscriptions are tailored to college semester schedules and delivered to campuses.
In 2013, students and faculty created the Bard EATS Council to support local farms and sustainable products, increase food purchasing transparency, reduce waste and decrease the college’s overall carbon footprint. Bard EATS is a multifaceted organization comprised of leadership from the Bard Farm, Bard Dining, the Environmental and Urban Studies Department, the Office of the Vice President, the Office of Sustainability and, as of September 2015, Bard Student Government Representatives.
In 2008, Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, kicked off a campus-wide initiative called “Nourishing Body and Mind: Bates Contemplates Food” to explore why a strong and healthy food culture was critical to their educational mission. This was inspired by the opening of the new dining commons and supported by a major gift supporting the use of organic, natural and farm-fresh foods. As a result of the year-long initiative, Bates purchased nearly 30% of its food from local sources, transformed the culture of dining services, and earned three stars from the Green Restaurant Association, among other achievements.
Using the LeanPath 360 program for food waste prevention, Boston College benchmarked their food waste, and then worked to reduce that waste by nearly 60% over 12 months.
This case study from Boston University illustrates the use of a specific local foods promotional campaign to increase procurement of select locally grown foods and to stimulate production of these crops by local farmers. This also demonstrates the use of frozen local produce and how a traditional produce distributor and a food processor can play a role in this local foods campaign.
Local lettuce is an easy-to-integrate local food, providing an opportunity to highlight more nutritious, delicious and attractive salad options. John Ayer of Brattleboro Union High School has been using a few simple techniques to increase local lettuce purchasing, and more importantly, doubling sales and profits of salads.
In spring 2012 students at Colby-Sawyer College started a petition aimed at increasing the amount of local food purchased by the institution’s dining services, then helped launch a successful, multi-year collaborative procurement effort. They set a target for 20% of the food served on campus to come from within a 100 mile radius. In Fall 2013, the College reached their goal of 20%, and exceeded it in April 2014 with a high of 25.7% of their food budget that month going to local items. They plan to continue to meet and exceed the 20% goal in moving forward.
In 2015, Farm to Institution New England (FINE), Real Food Challenge, Environment Maine, and Maine Farmland Trust, along with hundreds of students, farmers, advocates, and community members, worked together to create preferential sourcing for Maine and New England produced foods in the University of Maine System’s 2015-16 food service Request for Proposal (RFP) and contracting process.