Legislative Recommendations for A Statewide Farm-to-School Bill in Mississippi

As states and school districts around the country consider strategies to address childhood obesity, programs that connect schools with local farmers selling fresh fruits and vegetables have emerged as effective means of improving fruit and vegetable consumption. Equally important, these programs spur economic development by creating a market for the sale of produce grown by local farmers, in which individual and governmental “food dollars” can be increasingly spent within the state. In 2010, over 2000 farm-to-school programs were in operation and 25 states had state-level farm-to-school policies