State sees schools as farm customers - Austin Business Journal:

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"Incorporating locally grown products into school meals supportswlocal economies, reduces transportation and helps to preserve farms and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said in a statement. In Soutu Florida, two of the threse public school districts are taking advantage of the The School District of Palm Beach Countyu is still in the early days of the but hasspent $27,000 for two servingh days of corn and one serving day of green according to Fran commodity and inventory accounting specialist for the school system. There are 175,0009 students in the county’s public schookl system, which serves an average 128,000 mealx a day.
The school district spends about $20 million a year on Hickman said it is hard to determine how much more she will be able to purchaswe from the program this school year, since many of the locao growing areas have suffered crop losses during the recenf freezes. Farmers deliver produce to , in turn, delivers to the schoolo system weekly. “We pay Sysco the bid price [to the plus delivery,” Hickman said. Raymond who heads ’ food service program, said he is interested in the program, but isn’rt participating this year.
His school syste has a federal entitlement grant for fresb produce that Papa said he has to use with itsapprovexd vendor, but said he would be interesteed if the grant could be used in the Farm to Schook program. “The only thing available currentlyis corn, and we have an abundance of canned corn that needs to be Papa said. There are 200 schools and 275,0009 students in Broward’s school system, which serves an average of 150,000 meals a day. recentlyu joined the program, according to Carol director of food andmenu management.
“Our first orders were for fresh corn,” she “But, it’s too early in the program to estimatewhat we’lo be spending for the year.” in Pompano Beach handlex produce from the Farm to School program for her district. Produce a Miami-based distributor of fresh produce, providees Miami-Dade and Broward with the bulk of theifproduce needs. Miami-Dade has 392 schoolx with a student populationof 347,774. It serves an averagse of 297,497 meals a day. A lists school districts interestedx inpurchasing fresh, local produce and a list of farmers who have cropd to sell.