Health Briefs: Farm to School Foods For CA Students and Grants Awarded For Parks Projects Across LA

First Partner Siebel Newsom Releases Report to Expand Access to Farm to School Across California

SACRAMENTO – First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom Feb. 24, announced the release of Planting the Seed: Farm to School Roadmap for Success, a report promoting the expansion of farm to school programs across California to advance child well-being, equity, economic growth and environmental resilience. 

Access to high-quality, fresh foods can increase students’ consumption of fruits and vegetables and support children’s physical health, while hands-on experiential learning opportunities like gardening and cooking serve to improve educational outcomes and support whole-child development. Farm to school programs allow students to learn about the relationships between food systems and the environment. 

First Partner Siebel Newsom said Planting the Seed is a roadmap to strengthen the state’s school food systems, nurture children’s minds and bodies, and cultivate a healthier, more equitable, climate smart California for all.

During the pandemic, approximately one in four low-income families in the state relied on food from schools to cover food shortages. Nationally, people of color are more likely to experience food insecurity, hunger, childhood obesity and diabetes in both rural and urban communities. 

Farm to school programs promote economic growth in local communities through local procurement, and incentivize climate smart, regenerative agriculture practices. 

Planting the Seed outlines specific recommendations, including: 

Allocating funding to scale up farm to school programs that encourage and prioritize equitable, climate smart procurement. 

Investing in school food careers and scratch cooking infrastructure to ensure school nutrition teams can prepare delicious, nutritious, and locally-sourced meals.

Developing optional model K-12 food education standards to help students understand how food impacts health, culture, biodiversity and climate. 

Strengthening relationships between schools and producers to improve food system equity and promote climate smart, regenerative agriculture practices. 

Expanding and creating inclusive access to school food markets for a wide range of California producers, especially small and mid-scale producers, producers that are Black, Indigenous, or people of color, and producers that utilize climate smart, regenerative agriculture practices. 

Investing in evaluation and research, and developing an annual California farm to school census.  

Planting the Seed: Farm to School Roadmap for Success can be found here. 

Park Projects in LA County Awarded More Than $26 Million In Competitive Grants

The Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District or RPOSD announced grant awards totaling over $26 million for park development across Los Angeles County, completing the first-ever cycle of three Measure A competitive grant programs. The grant programs were released on April 30 of last year as part of the special district’s ongoing implementation of Measure A.  

The 42 applications received during the six-month application period underwent review by a nine-member evaluation panel, and 30 were ultimately funded: 

• 11 applications totaling $9.4 million were funded for natural lands, local beaches, water conservation and protection, for projects that improve and protect open space, watersheds and water resources through planning, acquisition, development, improvement and restoration of multi-benefit parks;
• 13 applications totaling $11.1 million were funded for regional recreation facilities, multi-use trails, and accessibility, for acquisition, development, improvement, restoration, or rehabilitation projects that improve and protect regional recreational facilities, trails, and accessibility; and
• 6 applications totaling $5.7 million were funded for parkland acquisition, for acquisition-only projects that meet the goals of the Natural Lands, Local Beaches, Water Conservation and Protection Competitive Grants Program or the Regional Recreation, Multi-use Trails and Accessibility Competitive Grant Programs. This program prioritizes urgent acquisitions in study areas with high or very high park need as well as trail connections and access, wildlife corridors, and critical habitat.

Details: https://rposd.lacounty.gov.