Fox Fire Farms ™

A discussion three years ago among La Plata County residents who make their living off the land resulted in locally grown produce and meat in Durango 9-R School District breakfast and lunch menus.

The Farm to School program, a coalition of area farmers and ranchers, begins its fourth school year this week.

"We were talking about sustainability in the context of food and agricultural policies and wanted to find out what could be done to change them," said Jim Dyer who, with wife, Pam, raises sheep for wool in Marvel. "We were anxious to make things happen and not just talk."

One of the proclaimed goals of the Farm to School program is to bring sanity to the absurdity of having a bounty of fresh farm produce available and no system to deliver it to people who can benefit from it.

As a first step to show what could be done, the Farm to School coalition provided fruit, vegetables and meat for the Durango School District 9-R all-staff orientation breakfast in the fall of 2005. Now, all 10 schools in the district use some locally produced food, said Krista Garand, 9-R's director of nutrition services.

The range of local agricultural products covers milled flour to micro-greens to vegetables to fruit to meat. Micro-greens for salad bars are available all year. Other produce is consumed in season.

"We contract with 12 farms," Garand said. "We could always use more produce, but we actually do quite a bit."

The school district serves from 1,600 to 2,000 meals a day, Garand said.

This fall, for the first time, Garand has been able to assure herself of enough organic, grass-produced ground beef from Foxfire Farms for the entire year.

The supply line was tested in a pilot program last April. The beef will be used in tacos and burritos.

Dyer is coordinator of the Southwest Marketing Network, which with Healthy Lifestyle La Plata coordinates the Farm to School program. Healthy Lifestyle La Plata provides funding for organizing efforts through Live Well Colorado.

"Ignacio schools now are looking for local food sources," Dyer said.

Changing state or federal guidelines regarding food sources or nutritional guidelines requires writing letters to the editor, conducting workshops and working with area legislators as well as getting the school district aboard, Dyer said.

One payoff is a provision in the recently approved farm bill that allows school districts to give preference to locally produced food, said Dyer, who was a member of a committee that worked on the farm-bill amendments.

Producing crops for the school district is a boon to farmers because it offers an extra market, Jason Cole said Tuesday as he and his cousin Caitlin Morgan picked apples - yellow transparents - on his Florida Mesa ranch. Ten boxes - 50 pieces to the box - are going to the school district.

Otherwise, he perhaps would have to look farther afield than the weekly Durango Farmers Market and local contacts to sell his crops, Cole said. Neighborhood markets are particularly welcome at a time when increasing transportation and refrigeration costs are making distant markets less appealing.

Cole has 5 acres of apples on 300 acres that once belonged to his grandparents.

The orchard, planted in 1913, produces 3 to 4 tons of apples, including red Jonathon, Ben Davis, Wagner and some varieties so old no one can identify them.

He also has provided broccoli, tomatoes, squash and pork sausage for the school district.

Another advantage of having the school district as a market includes having understanding customers, Cole said. Speaking of Garand, he said:

"She's willing to work with us and is willing to understand our problems," Cole said. "Like last year when aphids destroyed all our broccoli."

Local markets allow farmers to wait until the precise moment to harvest, Cole said. Harvests dictated by the need to cut, store and ship at a certain time robs produce of flavor, he said.

"As soon as a crop is harvested it begins to lose flavor," Cole said. "We can let our fruit and vegetables mature on the tree or on the vine. We can introduce flavors such as the winter delicata squash or the old apple varieties that kids have probably never tasted."

The Farm to School program has gained a modicum of fame. Students at the Rhode Island School of Design chose to showcase the program as one of a number of projects that will be on display in downtown Denver during the Democratic National Convention.

"The student work highlights projects from the United States and abroad that show how to reduce climate change through food, transportation, energy, water or land planning," Jaime Marland, director of media relations at the Rhode Island School of Design, said by telephone. "The projects show that you don't have to do big things, but that by making a small difference it all adds up."

Farm to School is small now, but its potential is tremendous, Dyer said.