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| Video cameras already watch the north end of Pike Place Market; the Parks Department is planning to install video monitors across the street in Victor Steinbrueck Park and in three other parks downtown and on Capitol Hill.
Photo by Revel Nt. |
Some of us know that the average bite of food travels 1,500 miles to reach our mouths. While the increasing number of farmers markets in American cities has been working to bring that mileage down, the Washington Environmental Council (WEC) is lobbying the legislature to take the localization of food to a more elementary level.
The idea is simple: get kids to eat well and local agriculture to make money by forging a supply relationship between farms and school districts.
Under the “Local Farms, Healthy Kids” program, school districts could halt the official bidding process for food services and give first preference to nearby farms.
So that the nutritional benefits of locally grown foods go to those who need them most — undernourished children — schools that have higher rates of poverty would receive a greater share of the $4 million required to start the program.
“Most healthy foods are expensive and perishable,” explains Rep. Eric Pettigrew (D-South Seattle), the legislation’s sponsor. “When families don’t have the money for those foods, they need to look at long-lasting foods that are most often less healthy.”
For this reason, the money would also make more coupons available for farmers markets. And the WEC is asking for an additional million dollars to provide fresh produce to local food banks that have, says WEC communications director Tom Geiger, “moved from an emergency dynamic for families… to a daily food run.”
Despite a general consensus on the idea, its implementation may be a bit trickier. School cafeterias aren’t well equipped to turn 100 pounds of raw potatoes into lunch. “Most schools don’t have kitchens anymore,” says Clayton Burrows, director of Growing Washington, a nonprofit aimed at supporting local agriculture. “They just reheat the food.”
Despite these difficulties, local farms are ready for the one million steady customers enrolled in the state’s K-12 schools. The students are ready too, says Pettigrew.
“What kids learn now about food, they take with them into adulthood,” he says. “Just having the food around, kids will find out they like more than they did before.”
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