Farm to School (FTS) is a nation-wide effort in the US to connect school nutrition programs with local farmers and broadly aims to connect school children with local, fresh, and healthy foods: a marked turn from industrialized, processed school meals. 

 

FTS is promoted as a "win-win-win" for local farmers, local communities, and children. However, FTS programs have been subject to academic critiques that they reproduce neoliberal ideologies “from the ground up" for their reliance on volunteerism and reproduction of inequity (Allen and Guthman 2006).

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This research draws from two years' participant observation, including semi-structured interviews with 17 Nutrition Directors across the state of Georgia. We find that 1) barriers to FTS sustainability can include such unforeseen technological factors as food safety; 2) while we do see inequities reproduced by some FTS programming, these are not inherent to FTS itself, but to the 'symbolic support' offered by many state legislatures without sustained funding or structural commitment.

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