Farm to school has been around for a while.

But the thing that has really caught the interest here as of late is our incentive program, where I was looking at other states and I saw what they were doing, and Michigan really caught my attention.

They were doing an incentive program for, gosh, eight or nine years now, but they had like $4 million from their state legislature to do an incentive program.

And I thought man would not be wonderful if we could work our way up to that.

So I went to Commissioner Pate and I told him what was going on, and I said, you know, this would be a way to encourage our schools to buy local products.

Sometimes you do things and you don't realize impractical have down the road, but of course it began with that setting up Sweet Grown Alabama.

And so that was important because next year when COVID hit and so we started looking when they were sending the kids home, we were going to keep feeding them.

And so, well, this is an opportunity for Alabama farmers because what we were having were trucking issues transportation issues plus that it wasn't a food shortage.

I tell you foods safe, its abundant, its sustainable, but we couldn't get it where we needed to be.

And so I started looking at more locally.

We can backfill that and that'd be good for farmers.

Better food and the schools weren't buying anything from local farmers because it's easy for them to pick up and phone call Atlanta, Nashville, get all that stuff to come pre palletized and sets it in the warehouses.

those nutrition directors, they have so much to do.

I don't see how they do what they have to do, but they've got to feed kids regardless.

So they're accustomed to sitting at their computer and pushing a button and ordering something and it shows up.

Well, when you're buying from local farmers here in the state of Alabama, that's not the case now.

Through working with us, we have to coordinate the logistics of getting it ordered, getting it from the farm to the school, and then they sweating bullets, whether or not they're going to get it.

the most difficult part about buying local is price.

It's the price point that it's just not economically affordable for them to buy from local farmers.

They can buy off of the USDA commodity list at a much lesser price, and they only have a very small amount to to feed an entire lunch purchased, including the cost of the meal, plus the labor to prepare it and serve it.

So when we looked at that, we thought, okay, if we can incentivize them, maybe it will give them the the initiative and incentive that where this is affordable, we can do it.

So I went to Commissioner Pate and I told him about the incentive program.

I thought it would help our nutrition directors be able to afford to buy local products.

And he liked the idea.

So he went to the legislature and pitched it to them.

And they did, too.

They gave us the first year of what we asked for and each year since they've been increasing it.

As you know, I've been general fund for a few years and Rick came in as agency, head of ag and agriculture, and he came to me and to my office and proposed this idea.

The concept, of course, is that the schools that serve food need to get their food as much as possible from local farmers, use locally produced from locally people on the local ground feeding the local kids.

Sounds like a great plan.

Said how much is going to cost and will it work?

He said, Of course it'll work.

It's not going to cost too much.

Let's get started.

Well, I think Commissioner Pate, as he started this program, he had a vision and we were happy to partner with them.

And I've been able to help him get the funding that it needs.

I have agriculture background.

I work with farmers.

The USDA, so I know that the program would work.

Convincing other legislators to support it and get their vote on the floor is important.

So but we all work together to achieve something.

When we see a need for for markets in these hard times for our farmers, we're happy to have to help out.

And so because we had Sweet Grown we had a database it told us where local food were being grown.

So and I think Don Wombles, it was his idea, but he said, let's see if we incentivize the child nutritionists And so we gave them $0.20 every time theyd feed one local product to one local child and so went to the legislature, turned to Albritton and others were just real leaders.

Governor, in that and got that 120,000 that 125,000 And so I knew 125,000 how many Alabama children get to eat local.

And so we did that.

Well, that started in October.

I think by February, March, we'd run out of money.

But once we taught people how to do it the great thing is people kept on doing it.

we think we probably sold five, six, seven hundred thousand dollars that first year and only a small part was actually reimbursable.

So the next year would go back to 200 and then we get 300 and then we get 400 the current year and then the year coming up starts in October we got 550 And why that's important, because while all this is going on, we've got those balls in the air Well, during COVID, a lot of money started flowing out of USDA.

And so we were catching pots of money there.

So and we got over $20 million of USDA money where we could buy local fruit vegetables over, I think, three years.

And so what we were able to do that was actually give one of the problems with that first farm to school program was who took advantage of it was the more affluent schools, the Hoovers, the Vestavia, the Baldwin county because they were, you know, had enough initiative to go out and get that money.

Well, this new money got we were able to target the underserved.

If you had over 50% of the kids on reduced lunch, we could target them.

And so really, we were able to go back fill all those black belt schools and other school systems that hadnt gone after that first money.

But additionally, they gave a big part of that money, which was to go and deliver to food banks during COVID.

And so while that was great.

I was at a meeting speaking, and a guy from Houston County Food Bank stood up and said, we've been given fruits and vegetables before but they're not quite rotten when they give them to us, they can see rotting by Friday, he said, You're getting stuff that was picked that day or the day before and so it's got a shelf life and so is so much fresher and better for, you know, folks who need food, bank and our school system.

So, yeah, it's just been a great program.

The the amount of money that we're using is minimal when it comes to how much money is being spent.

And yet it's having a tremendous effect on our local people.

It provides monies up.

We've got almost $2 million that that has in the local economy over these last three years.

That's tremendous difference.

we couldnt suck all the fruit vegetable out of the marketplace and out of our farmers markets So really we contacted a lot of them a yea ahead and said you got to start growing more.

We've got to have more because we're going to be buying millions and millions of dollars of fruits and vegetables that you were selling at farmers markets.

And so yeah, a lot of them are able to ramp up production and grow to meet the needs.

And there's, I think, maybe 25 different things USDA will pay that we can grow well in Alabama, that we can feed to Alabama children to get reimbursed.

I think the importance of the farm to school program is two or three different things.

One is the quality of the food that's going to to our children and the schools system and the freshness of it as well.

So if it gets to the school system real quick from the farm within that area, it also provides a market for those farmers that they know they've got an opportunity to sell quickly.

They don't have to set up on the side of the roads and things like that.

With labor concerns, it's hard to get all that done so they can harvest it, deliver it, and then the people in the school system can prepare it So you got a nutritious meal for children.

First off, it'll provide millions more into the local economy from Alabama's input.

That's the biggest part.

The other aspect is it will show to the kids in the agriculture areas that you can make money on a local basis on a local economy.

I think all thats win win.

So the Farm to School Program is a great program that schools throughout the state utilize.

It provides 20 cent reimbursement, which helps drop our food costs down for us.

But then it also connects our schools to our local farmers in the state of Alabama.

And so we're very fortunate that Commissioner Pate established this program for us to use.

It's a great it's so much fun to work with the Alabama farm to school staff.

They're wonderful resources for us in getting us connected to farmers that can supply us with food products.

over the past couple of years, we started sourcing lettuce, heads of lettuce and being able to prepare that ourselves, being able to chop and shred it in our local cafeterias.

And it provides such a better quality product.

It lasts longer because it has not been sitting on a truck being shipped to us.

Our teachers, our students notice a difference in quality and taste, which is a big component that we want to be seen in our cafeterias since we are able to do that manual work, it provides a much better taste to the product.

It provides better quality as far as the length that it last on our on our serving lines and our coolers.

And so that is that's even better for us being able to provide a quality product than something that has been shipped across the United States.

We don't know when it was processed, where it was processed and it was a learning curve with our staff teaching them how to process that.

But we have overcame those challenges, and that's just the standard now for us in our cafeterias.

So one of our most favorite items we get every spring is Alabama grown strawberries.

Those are sourced about 30 miles from us in Molton, Alabama, from Jay Calvert Farms.

Also, another winter treat.

We get Satsuma from Sessions Farm down in the mobile area.

And so we always look forward to having those on our serving lines during their peak season.

So I see the cafeteria is as an extension to the classroom.

We start at a very young age with our pre-K students introducing them to fresh fruits and vegetables on our fruit and vegetable bars on a daily basis.

So being able to connect an even more learning opportunity is teaching them where their food comes from.

And that is one of the great ways that Alabama farm to school can help us within our school cafeterias.

So we're able to further that connection.

So behind us here, we have our we're in our Haleyville center of technology, Green house.

We have a partnership with our agro science classes and our special needs classes.

And our students will plant seedlings and we will have lettuce grown and be served in our cafeterias here in the next coming weeks.

And this is a student project.

It provides a great source of pride for our students to see their work on our serving lines.

It it's a very popular day when we are able to provide these items on our salad bars.

these are Boozer farms began full time in 2012 and started off with a diversity of fruits and vegetables that we still continue today.

We grow more than 30 different varieties of various fruits and vegetables, start the year off with our strawberries and then continue on from there.

I was at a meeting and visiting with Don Wombles, who's at the Alabama Department of AG and Industries and with Beth Spratt.

And we were talking at the time about particularly our persimmon orchard that we're standing right here in front of and how in the fall we don't have a lot of farmers markets, and we had a lot more produce than we had ability to move it.

And one of them said, Well, what about the schools?

And I said, Well, I've never I don't, Im not GAP certified I'm not you know, I don't have this and that.

And they said, No, no, you don't.

That's not required.

And so that was an eye opener for me, because in my mind, you had to be a huge farm with all this, you know, overhead and things in order to be able to to sell to the schools.

And they explained to me the process, which was very easy, and then put me into contact with some of the nutrition directors throughout the state.

And very quickly, we found it no problem to move our persimmon crop.

in Alabama, a large portion of our production season is during the summer when schools are not in session.

But we have so many schools that are able to have summer feeding programs to help families that have food insecurities.

And so we have found that we've been able to partner with those schools and provide things like grape tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, Chilton County peaches.

I mean, who doesn't want a peach?

So the children and the families get very excited about the peaches, blackberries, blueberries, other items that are just, you know, right here.

And we're able to deliver them within a short distance of the farm to to the schools for the children to be able to enjoy.

So we are planning to expand our participation with the school systems in the coming years, especially for their summer feeding programs, by partnering with other farms.

A lot of times one farm may not have the volume that a school needs, so a school might need 300 cases of peaches, and a farm may only be able to offer 100.

But what we can do is combine multiple farms together in order to meet those needs.

That's advantageous for the smaller to middle sized farmers and then also for the school because they're having an impact on a wider range of people in their community by supporting those local businesses.

It makes me very proud to be able to participate in the Farm to school program.

I love knowing that children in our state and not just even in our state, but in my local community, are able to enjoy the benefits of what we worked so hard to produce.

I know the quality of the food that I'm providing to them, the nutritional value, the flavor.

And for a lot of those children, depending on what their home life is like, they may not have access to a lot of fresh local produce.

So it makes me extremely proud to be able to provide that to our community.

Just with the economy the way that it is, different produce vendors being able to get the products that we need and we get them from as far as California.

So to have it locally.

To know that we have it right here and to know that if I needed it, I could actually go and get it myself instead of having to depend on a big truck to bring it to me.

So being able to have it closer to home would be more dependable and more reliable on us as well.

I was contacted by Don and Beth with the Department of AG and they reached out to me about purchasing local produce from Alabama farmers.

And to incentivize it, they give us a portion or they give us a reimbursement back for whatever we serve to students.

And it's been a really wonderful program.

It's gives the students fresh local produce and it also contributes back to our farmers and goes straight to their pockets.

Most recently, we purchased watermelon from Chilton County.

So fairly close.

We're coming upon persimmon season and we'll have a couple of counties over the farmer that always provides that.

And satsumas from that county as well.

And also Baldwin County, which is right next door.

The main thing is we know where it's coming from for our students.

We know it's a local farmer.

It's not coming from another country.

We can give that straight to our students and we can control the end product that we're getting.

We know that we're giving them good home grown items.

And the little bit of reimbursement that we get back, we have to buy the produce anyway for students So to purchase it from a local farmer and be able to get a little bit of the reimbursement back, that helps us with that.

So since we started farm to school, I wanted the staff to have the opportunity to see it up close and personal as well.

So we've even taken them on a farm tour before.

So they had the opportunity to see hydroponic lettuce growing, which was something that most of them never even heard of or seen, and that was just right down the road in Clanton County.

And the produce that we've been getting in has been very fresh.

We had watermelon earlier this year and everybody's still talking about how sweet and amazing that it was not even realizing that it was, again, locally grown produce with the food is coming in fresh.

A lot of times we'll have products to come in from the distributors and it's already bad once it gets to us and we understand there's a process that they have to go through from wherever they're purchasing it from to it gets it from the manufacturer, the producer.

You know, all that process and by the time it gets to us its days, weeks old.

And so if we don't go ahead and use it, then we lose it.

And unfortunately, sometimes when it reaches our back door its already lost.

So by having it fresh and locally grown, He's bringing them straight to our back door and they're from the back door and in the ovens and cooking on the line in the same day.

That was kind of a scenario that we had.

I mean, maybe like the next day, but still we were able to serve them and everybody raved and ranted about, you know, the convenience of not having to do the extra cutting and cleaning of the product and then just the taste of it.

And then the care that the farmers put into it as well.

So Allman Farms our primary crop is tomatoes.

But we also grow things like cantaloupes, watermelons, peaches, apples and a few other crops.

You know, just your typical summer crops.

You'd expect we take a lot of pride in our farm and knowing that what we have is locally grown and locally sourced.

And when you purchase from our little farm store directly, those things are locally sourced.

So we want to encourage our students in our counties to get comfortable with the fruits and vegetables that they can grow at home, but also have those at school.

our family is the fifth generation farm.

The farm is certainly owned and operated by my father, Daniel, but my brother and I are slowly trying to step into those shoes and to be a fifth generation farm is it is a huge accomplishment in itself.

That's something that a lot of people can't say.

So that that's where our pride comes from, is we want to be a family that continues to grow and a farm that continues to distribute because family farms are not a thing that exist anymore.

So the more that we can do to be in our communities and provide food to those that need it, especially our students and schools with the Farm to School program allows us to continue to grow into to really take pride in knowing that everybody around us benefits from that.

anybody that should try to fresh watermelon, the watermelons you get at Walmart purchase purchasing one from a farmer just completely different in their color's different and everything's the same thing with like strawberries and tomatoes, you know, just the flavor palette and everything about them is so fresh and so crisp and you will find yourself eating more fruits and vegetables when they are local and they are fresh compared to you.

Just don't know what you're getting when you purchases items from a store or when they're coming from out of state.

Because the quality just not in them So this is extreme green farms.

We primarily grow lettuce.

We do some tomatoes and cucumbers as well.

But lettuce is what our businesses.

pre-COVID, we mainly 90% of our business was with restaurants.

95% of our business is restaurants.

We did a couple of farmers markets here and there.

COVID hit restaurants shut down.

So the local community stepped in tremendously and assisted us.

But then that's about the same time that the school systems kicked in too so the schools, realized that the vulnerability of not being able to just get lettuce regularly because when when something like that happens, it has to be traveling across multiple states to get to these.

There's a bigger demand for food.

When something like that happens, we all saw the toilet paper, but the same thing happened with lettuce too.

So if we're local and we produce it, yeah, we can prioritize our local customers and the local schools.

So the farm to school program is something that's been in the works for a long time, but it really has grown substantially for us here lately.

It's primarily where the schools will buy lettuce from the local farmers and prepare that in salads and hamburgers and and sandwiches for the kids, for the meals.

We're very proud to produce this lettuce for the kids locally, for schools locally, and for surrounding school systems.

They you know, the fact that the kids can get fresh, healthy lettuce that and and eat that instead of lettuce that has to be shipped in or that's not clean and is it's been sprayed with pesticides.

We're very happy to be able to do that for them.

We grow three different varieties.

We grow romaine butter crunch and artisan lettuce.

And that is what the school, what they use, those they use to romaine on the salads, they sandwiches, the hamburgers.

Same with the butter crunch, the bibb lettuce They will use that on sandwiches and hamburgers and artisan lettuce they use for little salads and stuff like that as well.

you know, from a sustainability perspective, we use a fraction of the water.

We use a fraction of the of the nutrients as it relates to growing in the system.

when we produce lettuce in the system, it is it is clean, it is fresh, we can schedule production around the system.

So when the schools are closed in the summertime, that's when most farmers produce something.

We can actually grow lettuce in the middle of the winter.

We grow product.

When the schools are open, we can accommodate them by scheduling the product around that we pride ourselves in harvesting the lettuce the day of or the day before it gets delivered.

So these people get absolutely the freshest product.

There is no week or two weeks in a refrigerator or two weeks or three weeks on a truck to get to them.

It is not , our lettuce is not chopped up.

It's it's still a live product.

When it goes out to the school.

It is We don't use any pesticides on our lettuce because of the environment that we grow it in.

So they get clean product as it is immediately for service for the kids.

This is important to Elmore County schools and our program because it gives us greater access to foods that are fresher prior to one of our farm to school partnerships.

That's with our lettuce grower.

We were getting lettuce typically from California.

By the time we got it here, it was a couple of weeks old, not in the greatest quality and had a very short life.

And there was a lot of waste because of because of product we couldn't use.

Now we receive a lettuce product that is beautiful.

Mr. Ralph Harvest our lettuce the day that he delivers to us, it's still on the root, is still really a live product and we get a really long shelf life out of it.

Commissioner Pate and his team at Department of AG and Industries have been our biggest partner.

They work to partner us partner school districts with farmers to meet our needs.

They've introduced me to farmers across the state and that's what's been able to bring product into our schools.

We work directly with a lettuce farmer, a hydroponic farmer that provides us lettuce every single day, and his farm is just about 45 miles away.

Also, fresh corn, collard greens.

We use them once a month with our with our.

With our meals.

Strawberries, blueberries, peaches, of course.

But they've been integral in helping us build those relationships.

as far as product that we have not been able to access locally?

Dairy is an issue.

We've had issues just with access to dairy.

We had our suppliers leave the state recently and it's it's really led to an increase in cost in milk, liquid milk product for us.

So I'm a huge fan for bringing dairy farmers back to the state.

And as you know, processing our our own dairy product and being able to have it in our schools.

Pork, there's not a lot of availability of pork products for our programs.

So Farm to school is a great opportunity for all school districts, and it's a great opportunity for the farmers themselves.

So it's a win win for the Alabama economy and the partnerships that are built there and for our schools.

It is a great opportunity.

There is a great opportunity for growth of the program, growth of how much product is being utilized in our child nutrition programs, in our schools.

There, of course, are school systems throughout the state.

We're serving kids every school day, throughout the school year.

Thats a given.

And we typically have a very large volume.

We serve close to 8000 lunch meals in Elmore county every every day so that, you know, at least half of those meals are typically going to include at least one of the produce items that that we choose.

But the great opportunities for growth just in terms of, you know, we serve every type of vegetable.

This program has allowed us to expose our students to more fruit and vegetable products and also provide the education of what type of agricultural products are grown or raised in in Alabama.

So it's not just the food items themselves that we're able to include in our program and serve with our meals, but also education in terms of, you know, farming, the agricultural process itself and what farmers do and how important they are not just to the economy in Alabama, but also to the health and nutrition of of the residents of Alabama.

So our school enrollment is just over 6000.

And we are blessed in this county to be a community eligibility provision school system, which means all of our students eat breakfast and lunch for free.

No cost to the students.

So we have great participation.

We feed well over 50% breakfast and we feed almost 80% of our students lunch.

So our kids really eat with us.

Marshall County likes to purchase local for our child nutrition program whenever possible.

We believe that we want our students to get local foods because they're more appealing, they taste better, and we're trying to develop lifelong habits for our students.

So we do several different ways of bringing locally grown produce to our school system.

We have hydroponic labs and hydroponic farms at some of our schools, so our students are able to grow some of our own produce that we then take and use into our lunchrooms and students who are growing produce or a lot of times more apt to actually eat the foods and hopefully develop lifelong eating habits, healthy eating habits.

And we also love to partner with the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries.

They have been a partnership.

They introduce us to farmers and make it very easy for a school nutrition program to purchase different fruits and vegetables to use in our school nutrition program.

Sometimes I'll have a local farmer call and reach out, or I'll know of a local farmer that has produce available and I'll talk to them and do a small purchase to bring those items into our school system.

And sometimes if I'm looking for a particular item like sweet potatoes, I may call the Alabama Department of Agriculture and they will put me in contact with the farmer that has those available.

But the Alabama Department of Agriculture has this great program that allows us to to receive an additional 20% incentive if we put an Alabama grown product on our tray.

So having that incentive really pushes a CNP director to go out and try to procure the local produce so that we get that extra reimbursement to run our programs.

And a lot of times that $0.20 per item will really pay for the produce itself.

whenever we have a local grown Alabama product on our menu, I try to promote that through social media.

That's our main source of information.

I like to post pictures, talk about the farmer, takes pictures of the farmer, if I have that available.

What county, what city it came from.

I just help.

I think that that helps show the parents and the students that we're trying to give back to our communities and give back to our state and keep things local.

I think any time that you can get produce or fruit brought in the day it's picked has to taste better from the food that's being shipped from far away.

So a lot of times our strawberries, our watermelons will be picked in the morning and then the farmer brings on straight to our back dock I went to visit D&S meat distributor, but they were not able to produce the meat in the 40 pound packages that we need in our school systems for the amount of students that we serve.

They had more family size packaging up to 10 pounds So it didn't really work for our system.

But I would like to see other people able to process meat in large quantities and able to serve those Alabama grown meats in our school system.

we know when when when COVID hit, people want local, not just the schools.

And so but they pivoted to freezer beef what we call freezer beef which is locally produced.

And just imagine what the advantage of that is to cattlemen.

So you cutt out every middle man you birthed the calf you raised the calf, you feed the calf and you sell it retail, not wholesale on hoof.

And so but we think we were processing about it because we expect our facilities at this office.

And so we were thinking we were processing about 11,000 head a year but small and but we think after we got another pot of money from USDA and I think it was 15 million, and so we were able to go make low interest loans to people that want to expand their beef processing facility start a new one buy new equipment.

And so we think by the time we get through with this money and we loan it out, and when it comes back, we get the loan and out again, we don't have to turn it back in But anyway, we think we'll be about 35,000 head a year.

We'll have tripled the amount of beef that can be processed Well, what I have here is a facility that is going to process 25, 30 head of beef and hogs once it's full capacity.

And we're going to have the opportunity to help farmers and ranchers around that area that we can bring their cattle here.

We're going to do custom processing for them with a processing fee.

So the farm has been here for a little bit and decided to start sending the cattle to a slaughter facility in Mississippi and bring that product back here to start selling it to the community for food sustainability.

So the decision was made that if we have a farm, why do we have a process so we can process our own cattle here, provide to tribal members, but at the same time to the customers around that area and having that retail store to provide to the community, So one of the reasons why the tribe decided to build this facility here is for food sustainability for the community and the tribal members as well.

So this is going to help the school district.

So we can do the farm to table.

The tribe owns a farm here where we raise our cattle, and then that's where we're going to bring cattle here.

So it's all going to stay within the community.

We do have a retail store here in front of our building, so that is to help the community and for food sustainability as well.

So the facility once its at capacity We're going to do 125 to 150 head per week.

So for a community that is going to be farm to table is something that is going to have a good source of protein to the community and having the school district here, it's a great way to ensure that we do have the kids that know where the food is coming from.

And this is going to come from our from our facility here.

So sweet grown Alabama Grown Alabama farm to fork all of those aspects.

This is going to be a USDA federally inspected facility.

So we do have the ability to sell outside of the state of Alabama if it's needed.

the ability to process beef in Alabama will be a positive for our program.

Right now, of course, we're having to access those products from other areas.

We have some smaller scale operations that are able to, in small amounts, get, you know, beef products into our schools that are Alabama grown but not in large amounts.

So it will help with that volume.

Of course, that can always help with the cost of product.

Again, the quality of the product.

And again, it's just going to promote that win win promoting, you know, the programs here, the health and nutrition of our students as well as the farmer and how that just is kind of the trickle down effect in the economy of the state.

Certainly not just with chickens but with the beef, pork, maybe even lamb.

Okay, we can expand this out.

The difficulty to tap into that vein, if you will, is that most of the chickens are owned not by the farmer, but by the conglomerate, the larger companies.

So this may open up a vein, if you will, of providing independent farmers growing more organic chicken that can be sold and raised locally.

So, yeah, there's this opens up a lot more opportunities for that which are already doing chicken to a little different deal because like you said, they're bigger companies for them to package for us to know it's local a lot of times their packaging might be going all over the south.

porks a little different issue.

We don't have any pork industry left in Alabama but we're certainly going to tackle it with beef and we could get some poultry in there, but it just cost and packaging that we'd need to address Well, me and my family in this farm, we've been doing this right here for a lifetime.

I was born into it.

And my wife and I and my kids.

And we do it from the ground up.

I owe it all first to God.

Second of all, to Mr. Harvey Means Mr. Jason Burrows was with the superintendent with Lowndes County which gave me my first opportunity to put the produce into the schools.

well if the state continues to give us an opportunity to open up a little bit more.

I think that it would be a wonderful thing because a lot of people that farms and my thing.

I don't deal with waste and I don't want to put a lot out there.

And I got nowhere for it to go.

So, you know, having have the opportunity to deal with the school system is an outlet for it Well right now its probably about seven or eight different counties that we're servicing.

We were servicing about 13 different counties from the start.

Mr. Don Wombles and Ms. Beth they had a program and we was able to get in on the program and kind of get it, you know, out through the state.

I raised a lot of different things.

Whatever is in season is pretty much what we raise.

And right now we're going to our fall season.

So we're doing our greens.

So but in the background here we have I mean, turnips and mustards and and the other field that we're going to see in a little bit, you'll see the collards What I like the most about the fall season dealing with this product in the back.

You don't have to get in such a hurry to harvest, unlike the spring and the summer.

You know, you're dealing with stuff like peas, squash, okra.

When they ready.

You got to get them when they ready the things about the Greens.

The Greens are mature and you can just watch them grow and you go harvest them when you get ready to harvest, you know.

But that's that's why my favorite season is the fall.

And another thing that I love, the fall season is that you don't have to fight with the elements so bad as far as the weeds and all of the grass and stuff.

Like this field behind us here I cultivated it two days ago and once I cultivated it slow.

I had to take my time and not cover up the mustards and the turnips and I came back.

I was able to kind of throw the dirt on up a little bit closer.

So they had adjusted the sweeps just right, so it didnt burry them So now that provided a moisture bed so the roots could have something live off of.

So I, I'm a fall guy.

But I do do other products like squash, okra, corn, tomato, bell peppers and all that and I don't use any chemicals and I have my personal reason for that.

And I won't tell the world that but you know, youll figure it out Anytime when you can take a seed and submit it into the earth and turn it loose and wait on him to do what he do.

You take one step, hell take the next one, and it's a great feeling to be able to watch it grow.

Turn around, harvest it, you know, and then delivered at the same time.

Well, Don Wombles and the guys, Commissioner Pate, they have really been aggressive in helping specialty crop growers like myself.

And that's one program that has really been a tremendous help to me because in the business you prime season or sale time is on the weekends.

We would sell to schools on Black Mondays and Tuesdays and that gave us our first part of the week to move our product.

So it to me is probably one of the best programs that we've ever got involved in.

We're a 400 acre farm.

We do produce and we got cattle.

Our mainstay crops are strawberries and peaches.

And then we do all kind of field crops in between.

We also got a gristmill.

We do stone ground cornmeal trying to become self-sufficient on the farm that we could sustain ourself if we needed to.

But our main crops is sold through a store where it's an old converted horse barn.

85 90% of our crop is sold through that barn.

we get our tips normally, then we get them out of Canada.

This year, we've had a few problems with some fungus problems.

So we ended up having to go to another supplier in Idaho to bring tips up here.

So we get our tips in in August.

We'll put them in trays, we finish them about 5 to 6 weeks prior to the first day of October.

We like to be setting our strawberries.

You come to this field in in mid April 1st of May and take it for fresh strawberries straight out of the field.

It just does not compare with strawberries out of California or Mexico.

Well, the first thing you got to understand is, is no agricultural product produces in a flat plane.

There's always crests and lows.

And some of it depends on the weather.

All that being said, in order to have enough product to keep everything supplied, we've got to have too much.

That's just that's just the bottom line.

Well, having another outlet for that too much product going into the schools has been a good thing for us because another thing you've got to understand is is the particular product we produce are very perishable.

We try to put a strawberry in in the hands of a customer the day it's picked or the next.

We do the same thing with schools.

So what I'm trying to say is it's all got to move.

It cant set.

And so another outlet for that has really benefited us.

for our particular business, We own our own farm store where we're at now, and we sell at several farmers markets.

Well, when a child eats our product at their school, when they go home, it also is going to benefit our market and where we sell it because the child is going to tell their parents that, you know, hey, I ate this strawberry and it was good.

And this work came from tomorrow.

And so it's been a good thing, So first, I would love to see more farmers in the north west Alabama area be able to to sell to our schools and that is a challenge that we face here on our campus, is that there just aren't enough farmers locally that can provide in the amounts that we need on our school campus.

So that would be one wish that I would love to love to see expand throughout our communities.

logistics is the most difficult part.

Getting it from the farm to the school.

Economically, the farmers themselves cannot afford to deliver to a school.

So, for example, right here in Montgomery County, we have 54 schools in Montgomery County.

So if you're going to deliver to the Montgomery County School system, that's 54 stops.

It's impossible to do that in a day's time with one one vehicle.

You can't do it.

So we have overcome some of that by working really close with some of our produce distributors in the state.

They're already going to the schools.

So now we're having to get them on board to handle this product for us.

Even with that, sometimes there's a little logistical problem of getting it from the farm to that distributor.

But we're beginning to write down some of those barriers.

But, you know, it's hard to put it in words without being really blunt.

It comes down to a dollar and cents issue.

Those guys, they've got to make money.

The farmers got to make money.

But yet we've got we get it to the school.

It's got to be still affordable for them, even when we're giving them the the incentive.

So it's it's all about economics at all levels there I would like to see it continue to grow by us being able to get more the farmers involved, more diversity in the program, and then to be able to help with that logistics issue, because that has been one of the biggest issues we've had.

We found a farmer from my home town of Lowndes County, which isn't that far from where we are today, and they have an amazing product of collard greens and they cut them.

They washed them.

So it's easy to have a delicious taste to them.

We did a presentation to Welcome Farm to School Month last year with them, with the parents and the students, and we served them on the lawn and everybody loved them.

But to get them from over 2 hours away back to us is a lot of work and it's costly.

So it did cost the farmers and it cost us.

So even though we appreciated the incentive, it didn't really cover all of it, but it was worth it to be able to be able to help the farmers out and again, to be able to introduce that product to our students in the families.

Well, and we know one of the challenges in farming is a lot of them are just they need different revenue streams because like this year we're getting crushed, whether cotton, corn, soybeans, even our wheat.

And so, yeah, we need them to diversified because just like your own stock portfolio, you don't want to be all in this or all the that if something is going to be up or down is industry wide.

And so yeah, we're hoping some people might look at it.

We certainly could grow a lot more fruit vegetables today.

We're still so far behind Georgia and Florida.

I mean, yeah, we can't even see them.

But but I did look were the only southern state that has a food incentive program for the school system.

And so, yeah, I think there's maybe ten or 12, but they're all either up north or on the West coast.

The only ones doing that.

I think the advantages when you got winners, you know, you got the school systems of course, and the farmers of course, and our participation as a legislature to fund it.

Our funding may be the limiting factor for this.

We have increased funding since the program started and as we use that money up, we know that it's growing and then we'll have to put more funding into that program.

In five years?

I would love to hear that all the schools in Alabama are getting those fresh local crops when available, that students have access to those that they know.

You know, that I would love to see farmers visit more schools so those kids can meet those farmers and know who's growing their food because in five years you're going to see more and more students in schools.

And with the nutritional program changing all the time and the foods that we see are more package than ever knowing that those foods are fresh and local lets kids taste those things and that's what they really need.

And I just want to see that program expand throughout the state so that not only my farm but other farms in our areas, other forms of other state can benefit from it as well.

There can be ten more of me in this state because we've got a long way to grow a lot of schools that can definitely benefit from this program.

We are going to produce as much as we can accommodate as many schools as we can.

And to be honest with you, I think the sky's the limit.

What would I like to see in five years?

I would like to see farmers, all farmers being participating in our local schools in some way or form.

I know that this is not not every farmer grows produce.

Not every farmer is in the business of growing apples or fruit and stuff like that that the schools can can use, but we can all diversify a little bit to accommodate our local kids and make sure that our kids get fresh fruit.

So in order to get plugged in with the school systems, I would recommend starting with either Don Wombles or Beth Spratt at the State Department and getting some suggestions from them.

Also, though, it never hurts to reach out to your local school system, you can find your your child nutrition director there, reach out to them, see what needs they might have, what produce they might be interested in, and and just go from there.

You know, it's all about relationships.

And they're excited to have fresh local produce.

They would much rather serve their kids something that from their own hometown than they would something that's been shipped from other states or other countries.

So I would say reach out to those child nutrition directors, visit with the folks at the Alabama Department of AG and Industries and start to form those relationships to get those products into the schools.

There's usually several meetings across the state that farmer's market authority puts on to try to draw farmers and have farmers meet with nutrition directors and try to get the to put together, so to speak.

So I would recommend contacting the Farmers Market Authority and they could put you in contact with with any meeting or possibly set up a meeting.

Well, you know, those those viewers at home, their mothers and daddies and aunts and uncles and grandma was in Grand Daddy's.

And what do they want for their kids and grandkids?

They want the best food they can get.

And for them to realize that this program is out there is available because a lot of them probably do not know.

Yeah, we have to let them know that, hey, there is a program going on where your kids are being fed, Alabama grown fruits and vegetables, and we just need to talk more about it.

You know, I can't tell you enough how we need to give the the praise to our nutrition directors as they work tirelessly to get this product.

And then they have to do extra work with it over what they're accustomed to, to prepare to serve it.

So so that's another thing.

Now, is there such thing as maybe they get back to where they have more processing equipment, where they can chop it and slash it and dice it without having to do it by hand?

Maybe.

So that's some more that can be another funding issue that they might need.

I don't know if any of them are looking to go back to the days whenever I was in school.

You know, we cooked or they cooked everything.

Then most of our school lunches today are maybe just heated and served, but there's probably some cooking going on, too.

I know there is, because some of the stuff that we've that we're sending them for, that's Alabama grown.

They're having to cook it to some extent.

So we're getting there.

I'd like to see it expanded further.

I think once the concept gathers steam here, because systems bureaucracies are geared toward large purchases and going to have sales that bring it in.

This requires a little bit more work, but not much because the agency handles most of the work along that line as far as identifying what and who and where.

But with them handling that, the burden, administrative burden is very limited.

So I would like to see it expanded out.

I'd like to see more food handling here.

That means that the ag economy can regrow in the ag areas coming down to even the meat and potatoes, if you will, rather than just veggies and and fruits.

I think it'd be a win win for everybody, especially our farmers.

As we all know, agriculture has been the number one economy booster for our rural areas and is dying out.

So right now, because of all the technology that's happened, the outmigration in rural areas is happening.

We're not seeing a whole lot of agricultural products being boosted there because they don't have the staff mom or grandpa who had farm land passed it on and it just kind of went to waste and nobody there to man it, and its gone So everything is having to be outsourced and brought in.

So I think that one, it will help boost the economy, help revitalize our rural areas.

And that's personal to me because I'm from the rural area.

And then the incentive I know I would see every year they would bring checks to our direct this conference.

And I see these directors getting chicks and I'm like, Wow, I want to be one of those people who get a take too.

And the process is very easy.

it's just a few extra steps of things that are already doing some of the paperwork that they already do, and we just have to make copies and send it in so that we can verify that we got the product.

We use it to receive the funding.

So just let them know that it's not that much of an extra step above what we're already doing.

We're doing those steps every day anyway.

So the ones that are taking advantage of it Continue to take advantage of it.

It's one of those things, once you teach a person how to do it, they're going to keep doing it.

And so we just need to continue to bring attention to it because hopefully USDA will continue to fund it.

We've heard rumors they might in the new farm bill.

And so obviously we've ramped up the amount of money we'll get from state legislature.

But still, we're not keeping up with what we're fixing to lose from USDA if we don't get some additional money there I will say, and probably the best comparison I can give in terms of a five year growth goal five years ago and Elmore County, we were serving zero servings of local produce in our program in Elmore County.

This year we served over 300,000 servings during the school year and almost 500,000 servings during the summer.

And that is really just with our farm to school with the program that we get an additional reimbursement through Alabama Department of AG and Industries.

Our our governor, our legislators have supported this program.

It gives us the ability to have some additional funding and to be able to support our farmers and include those local products in our meals.

So in terms of five years, I would love the ability to have the majority of the products that we're serving in our meals.

Being an Alabama product.

I think if Alabama people were aware of the economic opportunity that they have in providing more for local folks on the farm, I think they would be more more engaging in raising an extra cow or an extra pig or an extra whatever and make it available for local school purchase.

And that way would open up the whole market.

Instead of working through the conglomerates, working on more independent basis, then you bring back in the smaller farmer, the one that has 20 acres and not 400 acres.

since we started our incentive program, our schools have purchased close to $2 million of product, and we have incentivized them with a little over $800,000.

So that's really good.

But it's not where I want to be.

You know, my goal is to to be in that $4 million range of incentivizing our schools that Michigan is.

Just to give you an example of the impact that it could be.

Alabama schools over the course of a year serve 82 million lunches.

They serve almost 41 million breakfast.

And our incentive program allows for $0.20 per meal component for each meal component served.

So if you ran $0.20 per meal component just times that, 120 million lunches, we're looking at close to $25 million that we could use as incentive money, but could go to our schools.

Now, what better way can we spend mine and your tax dollars and incentivizing schools to buy fresh local products to feed our kids and it go into the hand, ultimately benefiting our farmers who grew that?

You know, I dare you find me one program that's got the win win there that that program does.