The time is ripe for serving more New York-grown produce in the state's schools. Starting this fall, school districts in Johnson City and Hannibal will make concerted efforts to incorporate more locally grown foods in their lunch programs. Those efforts are in collaboration with the Cornell University Farm to School Project.

The Johnson City and Hannibal central school districts in upstate New York are the first pilot sites for the Cornell project, but collaborators hope to have two more school districts across the state on board during the next two years.

Schools in New York represent a large potential market for the state's farm products. Each day more than 1.6 million lunches and 450,000 breakfasts are served in schools across the state.

"Our goal is not only to expand opportunities for small and medium-sized family farms to sell their goods to schools, which can boost local economies, but also to offer children a variety of appealing, local, high-quality foods," says Jennifer Wilkins, project director and a senior extension associate in the Division of Nutritional Sciences (DNS) at Cornell.

One aspect of the program is to review menus and recipes from school districts to see how they can be modified to use more New York-grown food, such as potatoes, onions, apples, cabbages and kidney and black beans (as well as a wide range of animal products). These products are plentiful and available almost year-round.

Tracy Farrell, project manager at Cornell and an extension associate in DNS, is working with Wilkins in launching the program in New York. Farrell also is considering, for consumption through the program during the fall season, fresh local tomatoes, green peppers, lettuce, broccoli, pears and melons.

"Recipes are incredibly powerful tools in this context," says Wilkins. "We need to develop recipes that are cost effective, easy to prepare, use local produce and are acceptable to students."

Farrell not only is trying to establish the other pilot programs in New York but also is trying to identify produce suppliers and farmers in each project area who would be interested in working more closely on getting local produce into schools. She will evaluate how the new partnerships are working out, such as whether the schools are ordering enough from local farmers to make it worth their while. She also will evaluate whether farmers can deliver the foods directly to the schools, to what extent suppliers should be involved and whether the cost issues and level of food processing are satisfactory to both schools districts and farmers.

"We also will evaluate the feasibility of the pilot programs and analyze the policy and institutional barriers and opportunities from such programs," says Farrell. "What worked in California with year-round salad bars, for example, can't work in New York because of our seasons and seasonal crops."

Cornell's Farm to School Project is part of a four-year, multistate project, "From Farm to School: Improving Small Farm Viability and School Meals," funded by a $2 million U.S. Department of Agriculture Initiative for the Future of Agriculture and Food Systems (IFAFS). The initial pilot program was launched four years ago in California at Occidental College, and Cornell now is part of a new consortium of universities, school districts and nonproject groups developing a total of 19 "farm to school" programs in California, New Jersey and New York. Other farm-to-school pilot projects also are under way in Connecticut, North Carolina, Kentucky and Florida.

Wilkins and Farrell are working closely with school food-service directors, Cooperative Extension agricultural representatives, farmers and produce companies to implement the pilot farm-to-school projects at schools in New York. A key partner in the projects is NY Farms!, a coalition of diverse organizations and individuals -- including environmental, food security, farmland protection and preservation, and agriculture organizations and educators -- to promote farming and protect farmland in New York state.

"We know that school districts and farmers think this is a great idea. We also know we will have to be creative in serving more New York-grown foods in the schools," says Farrell. "These pilot programs will help us determine what is realistic and possible."

School districts and farmers who are interested in participating can contact Farrell at (607) 255-2620 or by e-mail at tjf6@cornell.edu.