In an Era of Mega-Farms, These Schools Still Serve (Some) Locally Grown Food

Jeanine Bowman has been working to improve school lunches in Minnesota for more than a decade. Long a champion of small farms and local agriculture, the district food service director for the Morris, Minnesota public schools uses as much of her budget as she can to supply school lunches with foods from local farms, including cabbage, peppers and tomatoes.

Take tomato soup. Cans of soup can be high in sodium. “We found that if we made it from scratch, using fresh tomatoes, that we can lower that sodium. So now we could serve it with a grilled cheese, which is what the kids liked, and still have a lower sodium meal,” Bowman tells Sentient. Lower sodium means the meal fits the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s nutrition standards, making it a win-win.

There is plenty of debate about where the U.S. food system is headed, but Bowman is more focused on the communities where she lives and works. In her experience, sourcing from nearby farms has meant fresher-tasting food that appeals to kids, parents and school district officials.