Author: Site Owner

Dado el tamaño y el crecimiento de la población hispana en los Estados Unidos y su poder adquisitivo, la comunidad hispana es un motor clave del crecimiento de los mercados nacionales de consumo, incluyendo nuestro mercado de productos orgánicos.

De parte del Programa Nacional Orgánico (NOP, por sus siglas en inglés) del Servicio de Comercialización Agrícola (AMS, por sus siglas en inglés), por favor, únase a nosotros a medida que continuamos celebrando el Mes Nacional de la Herencia Hispana.  La observancia de un mes, realizada todos los años del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre, celebra las culturas y tradiciones de los estadounidenses que tienen sus raíces en España, México y países de habla hispana de América Central, América del Sur, y el Caribe.  En el NOP, el aumentar nuestra apreciación de las culturas hispanas igual que nuestras conexiones con los hispanos es esencial para nuestro éxito.

Es mucho lo que hemos hecho y seguimos haciendo para servir participantes hispanos.  Las regulaciones orgánicas del USDA, así como el Manual del Programa Nacional Orgánico – que contienen los estándares orgánicos, documentos de orientación, memorandos de política e instrucciones – están disponibles en español.  Además, nuestra reciente iniciativa orgánica “Sound and Sensible,” que ayuda a que la certificación orgánica sea más accesible, alcanzable y asequible para pequeños productores y procesadores, también incluye recursos en español.

Según la Oficina de Censo de EE.UU., hoy hay más de 56.6 millones de hispanos en los Estados Unidos.  Las personas de origen o descendencia hispana representan el 17.6 por ciento de la población total y constituyen el grupo más grande y uno de los de crecimiento más rápido de los grupos minoritarios étnicos o raciales.  Además, según el Centro Selig para el Crecimiento Económico, el poder adquisitivo de la población hispana en los Estados Unidos se estima en aproximadamente $ 1.3 trillones, una cantidad mayor que el Producto Interno Bruto (PIB) de México, el tercer mayor socio comercial de nuestro país.

Dado el tamaño y el crecimiento de la población hispana en los Estados Unidos y su poder adquisitivo, la comunidad hispana es un motor clave del crecimiento de los mercados nacionales de consumo, incluyendo nuestro mercado de productos orgánicos.  De acuerdo con un estudio realizado por la Asociación de Comercio Orgánico (OTA, por sus siglas en inglés), con el crecimiento del mercado nacional ha habido un crecimiento en la diversidad de familias que compran productos orgánicos, tal que la diversidad de consumidores empieza a alinearse con los datos étnicos y raciales del país.

Participantes del NOP también incluyen operaciones orgánicas certificadas, tanto en los Estados Unidos como en el extranjero.  De acuerdo con el Censo de Agricultura de 2012, el número de agricultores hispanos en los Estados Unidos aumentó un 21 por ciento entre 2007 y 2012.  En California, el estado con el mayor número de operaciones certificadas como orgánica, la porción de agricultores de origen hispano es del 12 por ciento, cuatro veces más que el promedio nacional de 3 por ciento.  En el extranjero, de acuerdo con la base de datos Organic INTEGRITY, hay más de 31,700 operaciones orgánicas certificadas a las normas del USDA.  Aunque un poco más del 70 por ciento de estas operaciones se encuentran en los Estados Unidos, aproximadamente el 30 por ciento o alrededor de 9,300 de ellas están en más de 120 países extranjeros.  De las que están en el extranjero, casi el 60 por ciento están en España, México y países de habla hispana de América Central, América del Sur, y el Caribe.

Fortaleciendo nuestras relaciones con participantes hispanos en el extranjero, estamos trabajando con México en un acuerdo bilateral de equivalencia orgánica, y esperamos añadir a México a nuestra lista de socios de comercio internacional.  Además, estamos trabajando con el Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (IICA) y su Comisión Interamericana de Agricultura Orgánica (CIAO) en el desarrollo del sector orgánico en América Latina.

Por lo tanto, el celebrar el Mes de la Herencia Hispana es una celebración no sólo de las diversas culturas y las personas que componen los Estados Unidos sino también una celebración de nuestros clientes nacionales e internacionales.  Y, al exitosamente honrar y servir a nuestros clientes, nuestro programa tiene éxito.

Many NIFA-funded programs make it easier for low income families to access fresh, nutritious foods and stretch their food-buying dollars. (iStock image)

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) opened its doors on Oct. 1, 2009, created by the 2008 Farm Bill.  NIFA begins its eighth year as USDA’s premier extramural agricultural science agency by examining its role in helping reduce hunger in the United States.

As a nation, we are making great strides in combating food insecurity—the limited access to adequate food due to a lack of money and other resources. A recent household food security report issued by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) shows the lowest figures on record for food insecurity among children.

Funding and leadership from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) support many food and nutrition assistance programs that provide low-income households access to food, a healthful diet and nutrition education. Three such programs are the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI), Community Food Projects (CFP), and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP).

Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive funding supports projects that increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participant access to fruits and vegetables through incentive programs at the point of sale. In one example, the Fair Food Network provides a “Double Up Food Bucks” healthy food incentive program in nine states to reach more children and families with needed nutritious foods. Double Up provides matching funds (up to $10) for SNAP participants who purchase locally grown fresh produce, a transaction that also supports local farmers and communities.

Community Food Projects aim to increase access to food for low-income individuals. In Choctaw, Mississippi, a $300,000 CFP grant has enabled the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians to construct a greenhouse, high tunnels, an orchard and a processing center. Prior to this CFP, little fresh produce was grown on the reservation. Now, low-income families are able to meet about 25 percent of their needs with locally-grown fruits and vegetables.

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program helps more than half a million low-income families each year improve their diets and nutrition practices, stretch their food dollars farther, handle food more safely and increase their physical activity levels.  In 2015, NIFA provided $67.9 million in EFNEP funding to 75 land-grant universities across the nation.  EFNEP educators worked directly with 119,351 adults and 377,702 children and reached more than 340,000 family members indirectly. Collectively, EFNEP graduates saved more than $1.3 million in food costs and 18 percent more participants reported that they were not running out of food by the end of the month than before the program.

The nutritionists at NIFA are working with our sister agencies across USDA, university partners and communities across the U.S. and its territories, providing opportunities for increased access to healthy, abundant, and nutritious food for all. The reductions in food insecurity reported by ERS are evidence that these collaborative efforts are indeed bearing fruit.

NIFA invests in and advances agricultural research, education and extension and seeks to make transformative discoveries that solve societal challenges.

October 11th, 2016|Tags: Climate|0 Comments

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By Jack Thuon, American Forest

Trees uprooted in Savannah, GA in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. Credit: Daniel Bonnell.

Hurricane Matthew first made contact with the east coast of Florida on Thursday, October 6, 2016, as a Category 4 hurricane, which eventually weakened to a Category 2 by the time it passed Jacksonville, Fla. on Friday night. The eye of the storm made landfall in South Carolina Saturday morning as a Category 1, which was weaker than originally anticipated and is currently headed out to sea away from major land masses. Still, the storm caused massive destruction, not only in the U.S., but in the Caribbean as well.  Haiti’s Acting President Jocelerme Privert announced Sunday night the death toll had risen to more than 1,000 with many more still unaccounted for. In the United States, at least 18 people have been confirmed dead by authorities in four states. In addition to the damage done to cities and towns, forests from Florida to North Carolina also took a beating. Thankfully, Hurricane Matthew was not as large and powerful as past storms because, through past experiences, we know large hurricanes can be especially dangerous to forests.

Hurricane Hugo (1989)

Hurricane Hugo made landfall in South Carolina in September of 1989, as a Category 4 hurricane. According to Southern Forests, almost four years’ worth of timber was destroyed in 24 hours. The combination of 130-mile-per-hour winds and storm surges of salt water from the Atlantic damaged roughly 4.5 million acres of forest in South Carolina alone. Almost 25 percent of the damaged forests needed reforestation after the storm had passed. Hurricane Hugo still stands as one of the most devastating natural disasters to hit South Carolina’s forests.

Hurricane Andrew (1992)

Hurricane Andrew was the most destructive hurricane in Florida’s history, destroying 25,000 homes in Miami-Dade County alone and killing 65 people.[1] The greatest environmental impact came when Andrew passed over the Everglades and Biscayne National Parks. The storm knocked over or damaged trees on roughly 70,000 acres, including 25 percent of pine trees and 33 percent of royal palms in the Everglades.[2] Although the damage was catastrophic, researchers found that within three weeks of the storms passing, the surviving vegetation had already began to sprout new growth, and most trees in the Everglades today are growing normally and beginning to fill in the gaps Andrew left.[3]

Hurricane Katrina (2005)

After Hurricane Katrina finished its destruction of the gulf coast region in 2005, nearly 5 million acres, or 320 million trees, throughout Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana had been wiped out.[4] According to a study by Berkley Lab, the loss of so many trees was not only devastating to the ecosystem within these forests, but also to the Earth’s atmosphere. Young forests are considered to be “carbon sinks,” which take carbon dioxide from the air and store it in vegetation.[5] However, when a storm such as Hurricane Katrina flattens these young forests, all the carbon dioxide has no where to go except up, negatively effecting the ozone layer and adding to the problem of climate change.[6] It was estimated by NASA and scientists at the University of New Hampshire at Durham that the total carbon losses were about 60-100 percent of the net annual amounts of carbon released by carbon sinks in the U.S., or, in more basic terms, roughly a 10 percent increase to annual U.S. fossil fuel emissions. [7]

Hurricane Ike (2008)

Hurricane Ike made landfall near Galveston, Texas as a Category 2 hurricane; however, the storm surge had the same effect of a Category 4. As a result, the damage was widespread and major. While the impact on forests was small compared to Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina, one must remember that there are far fewer forests in Texas than in the rest of the southeast. According to the Galveston Island Tree Conservancy, 31,000 trees were knocked down due to the near 100-mile-per-hour winds, and more than 10,000 trees lost half or more canopy cover, meaning they were deemed likely to die by crews who assisted in the cleanup process.

Hurricanes Irene and Sandy (2011-2012)

These two storms were unique because they occurred so close together and hit areas not accustomed to powerful hurricanes. Just as Louisiana took the brunt of Katrina and Florida took Andrew, New Jersey was the most affected by Irene and Sandy. Most of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic is covered with trees, many of which evolved to withstand snowstorms, not hurricanes. The powerful winds and torrential rainfall did a number on many New Jersey forests, in particular. The Newark watershed lost thousands of trees, many of which were hundreds of years old and will, therefore, take hundreds more years for the forests to look the same again.

Hurricane Matthew (2016)

There was major concern of Hurricane Matthew causing a similar effect as Andrew, Ike, Irene, Sandy and maybe even Katrina on our southeastern forests. However, most of the widespread damage occurred in Haiti and Cuba, leaving U.S. forests relatively unharmed. Thankfully, Hurricane Matthew spared the Everglades and most other major forests by only sideswiping the coasts, and, though many trees came down in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, it was not nearly as bad as many had feared. Had the storm shifted 20 miles west, there could have been massive destruction to southeastern forests.

Hurricanes happen regardless of climate change. However, storms will only continue to become worse and more frequent if major action is not taken to combat climate change.  Without real action, many forests on the east coast and near the Gulf of Mexico will suffer. As fallen trees are a source of carbon, yet living trees are our planet’s greatest land-based carbon sinks, without  healthy forests there may be too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to avoid major climate change effects, even if meaningful legislation were to be passed. Humans need the benefits of forests to survive, meaning we are at risk if hurricanes continue to severely damage them. A major storm once in a while is natural, but more and more will start to harm forests and humans themselves if climate change continues to progress.

 

[1] Simon Fraser University. Hurricane Andrew. Retrieved from SFU online. http://www.sfu.ca/geog/geog351fall06/group06/Hurricane1992.htm

[2] Simon Fraser University. Hurricane Andrew. Retrieved from SFU online. http://www.sfu.ca/geog/geog351fall06/group06/Hurricane1992.htm

[3] Simon Fraser University. Hurricane Andrew. Retrieved from SFU online. http://www.sfu.ca/geog/geog351fall06/group06/Hurricane1992.htm

[4] Jenner, L. (2007, November). Forests Damaged by Hurricane Karina Become Major Carbon Source. NASA. Retrieved from http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2007/katrina_carbon.html

[5] Jenner, L. (2007, November). Forests Damaged by Hurricane Karina Become Major Carbon Source. NASA. Retrieved from http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2007/katrina_carbon.html

[6] Jenner, L. (2007, November). Forests Damaged by Hurricane Karina Become Major Carbon Source. NASA. Retrieved from http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2007/katrina_carbon.html

[7]Jenner, L. (2007, November). Forests Damaged by Hurricane Karina Become Major Carbon Source. NASA. Retrieved from http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2007/katrina_carbon.html

The post Hurricanes and Forests: Impacts over the Past Two Decades appeared first on American Forests.

ARS scientists and their partners are using a giant electronic scanner in Maricopa, Arizona to study the growth characteristics of sorghum plants as part of a project designed to speed biofuel crop development. Photo by Jeffrey White, Agricultural Research Service.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

With its 30-ton frame and 50-foot-high catwalk, the newest scanner for measuring crop plants in Maricopa, Arizona, can be seen for miles. It looms over a tract the length of two football fields and moves along steel rails.

“When people saw this big apparatus being built here, they started asking if we were going to be looking for space aliens,” says Jeffrey W. White, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant physiologist with the Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center in Maricopa. Rather than studying the heavens, the scanner is measuring the individual characteristics of thousands of energy sorghum plants growing underneath it. The effort could play an outsized role in meeting the Nation’s future energy needs.

This research is designed to speed up the pace of bringing biofuels to market and is part of a program sponsored by the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) known as Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture (TERRA).

“The TERRA program represents the intersection of biology, engineering and computer science. It capitalizes on public-private partnerships and is really a new horizon for agricultural productivity and sustainability,” says Joe Cornelius, ARPA-E program director.

The DOE program in Maricopa is led by investigators from the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in collaboration with USDA, the University of Arizona, the University of Illinois, Washington University of St. Louis, Kansas State University, Texas A&M University and Clemson University. It builds on strategic investments by USDA and the National Science Foundation.

White’s role is focused on developing energy sorghum better able to withstand the droughts and rising temperatures expected with climate change. “Maricopa’s arid climate makes it an ideal site for measuring the effects of heat and drought on bioenergy crops. It’s one of the most challenging environments for growing crops in the continental United States,” he says.

The plots in Maricopa include hundreds of lines, cultivars and hybrids of sorghum. As the scanner moves across the field its cameras and sensors pass over the plants capturing data about them in granular detail. The researchers expect to see numerous variations in heat tolerance and water stress from one plant to the next.

The scanner is designed to save time. In a half-day it collects as much data as a single person could gather with a handheld scanner in five weeks. Some 42,000 individual plants are being scanned. The data collected will be publicly accessible and the researchers expect it to be mined for years to come.

The team is also using the scanner to advance a technology still in its infancy: gathering data with improved cameras and imaging systems that are sensitive to different wavelengths of light. The same type of crop plants, sometimes growing side by side, can vary widely in how they respond to water or heat stress. Scanners that detect different wavelengths can pick up details that escape the naked eye. Those details—such as the temperature of a plant’s foliage, the amount of chlorophyll it contains and the surface area of its developing leaves—can be important indicators.

The focus of the current program is sorghum, a drought-tolerant crop that can provide food, fuel and feed. In the future, other crops including corn, soy beans, wheat and lettuce could benefit from what the researchers learn. “This technology could lead to advances in a wide range of areas,” White says.

October 7th, 2016|Tags: Forest Digest|0 Comments

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Redwood National Park. Credit: Max Forster.

Find out the latest in forest news in this week’s Forest Digest!

• How do palm trees survive hurricanes? — Treehugger.com
  With Hurricane Matthew looming as it reaches the eastern coast of the United States, this article takes a look at how the trees who stand in its wake — palm trees — withstand the wind and trauma brought on by hurricanes.
• The World’s Tallest Trees and Beyond… Things to See and Do in Redwood National and State Parks — Huffington Post
  Although an incredible site to see in itself, the world’s tallest trees in Redwood National and State Parks are not the only attraction to the forest wonderland on California’s coast. Find out a number of things to do when visiting this magnificent destination.
• As cities get warmer, their trees lose some of their ability to take carbon out of the atmosphere — LA Times
  While trees in our cities provide a myriad of benefits to residents, they are currently taking a toll as scientists have discovered that urban warming has accounted for a 12-percent loss in carbon sequestration by city trees.
• The subtle communication skills of trees — Washington Post
  The book “The Hidden Life of Trees” by author Peter Wohlleben takes a deep dive into the “wood wide web” through which trees communicate, feel and help each other.

The post Forest Digest — Week of October 3, 2016 appeared first on American Forests.

Different watershed land uses – such as the Lake Michigan forests and recreational area pictured here – affect regional water quality in lakes, which researchers can estimate using satellite imagery. Photo credit: US Forest Service

The Great Lakes cover over 95,000 square miles and contain trillions of gallons of water. These vestiges of the last Ice Age define immense. But their greatness makes water quality monitoring difficult.

In 2010, Titus Seilheimer, a US Forest Service research ecologist at the time, led a project funded by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative that parsed the vastness of the Great Lakes to estimate water quality in different basins. This information can identify which areas are likely to receive high nutrient inputs – which can cause harmful algae blooms and dead zones – and where resource managers should invest in restoration efforts.

But as Seilheimer said, “We can’t measure water quality everywhere.”

Now, through the US Forest Service’s partnership with ESRI, the work Seilheimer and his colleagues did is presented in an online and interactive story map, one of many produced by the US Forest Service through its continuous effort to develop new and engaging ways to share information.

The researchers generated maps like this one which show poor water quality risk in shades of blue for areas with available water quality monitoring data, and relative risk in yellow to red for the areas they evaluated. Photo credit: ESRI/Forest Service

The researchers analyzed satellite imagery for vegetation changes and land use (agriculture, urban, forest, etc.) around Great Lakes basins and watersheds for which water quality data already existed. By doing so they could determine which watershed conditions and land uses result in which downstream water conditions. They applied this cause and effect information to un-monitored basins and watersheds to estimate their water quality based on surrounding land use. These estimates demonstrate how different land uses and changes in forest coverage affect the natural filtering of excessive nutrients or pollutants from water.

“This type of work helps move the needle forward on understanding how the terrestrial environment impacts the watersheds,” said Charles ‘Hobie’ Perry, a US Forest Service research scientist. The story map demonstrates this terrestrial-aquatic linkage and provides maps showing land use, areas at risk for poor water quality, and forest canopy and vegetation changes around the Great Lakes. These tools also share the underlying data with land managers, decision-makers, and other interested users to facilitate their needs.

By using satellite imagery this way the US Forest Service also began to advance its own analysis capabilities. The Great Lakes project led to the development of the Landscape Change Monitoring System, which looks at multiple land cover change algorithms all together – whereas this specific project only utilized one algorithm – to create more detailed analyses of landscapes from satellite imagery.

Projects such as these provide ways to prioritize monitoring and restoration efforts to not only benefit natural ecosystems, but also everyone who lives nearby and relies on them for drinking water, jobs, and recreation.

The picturesque shoreline of Lake Michigan. Photo credit: US Forest Service

Kansas State University used a FSMIP grant to develop social media strategies for rural businesses to expand their customer base.

From Facebook to Snapchat, rural businesses are exploring how to use social media to improve their customer’s experience and expand their customer base. Over the last eight years, USDA and the Obama Administration have partnered with rural communities to build more opportunities that support rural small business owners, farmers and ranchers through applied research.   Today USDA awarded nearly $1 million in Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program (FSMIP) grants to support market research to strengthen markets for U.S. agricultural products domestically and internationally.

Administered by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), FSMIP projects make a real difference to diverse stakeholders and largely benefit rural communities.  For example, in 2013, FSMIP awarded a 2-year grant to Kansas State University to develop social media strategies for small green businesses, including nurseries, garden centers and lawn care operations, and to explore the potential of social media to expand their markets and profitability.  Social media holds promise as a strategy for these rural businesses which frequently have a small customer base and struggle to be profitable throughout the year, given the seasonal nature of their business.  Through social media, business owners could reach more potential customers for little to no cost but they often do not know how or why they should use these tools.

This successful project resulted in new research-based marketing tools including a social media strategy tool-kit and website.  These result are being shared and used by many different rural businesses across the nation. To continue and expand on the success of this project, Kansas State University was awarded a 2016 FSMIP grant to study consumers’ preferences toward social media marketing by farm-based businesses.  You can see all the 2016 FSMIP grants listed on the AMS website.

USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative (KYF2) coordinates the Department’s work to develop strong local and regional food systems – including FSMIP projects.  Information on local and regional supply chain resources is available on the KYF2 website, and the KYF2 Compass can help users locate USDA investments in their community.  More information on how USDA investments are connecting producers with consumers, expanding rural economic opportunities, and increasing access to healthy food is available in Chapter IV of USDA Results on Medium.

Business can really blossom at garden centers and nurseries though social media marketing reported project researchers supported by USDA’s Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program (FSMIP). Today, AMS awarded nearly $1 million in FSMIP grants to strengthen and explore new market opportunities for U.S. food and agricultural products. (USDA Photo)

Connecticut service members serve local blueberry smoothies and continue farm to school efforts at summer meals sites.

Over the past few summers, sponsors of USDA’s Summer Meals Programs have been elevating meal quality and encouraging program participation by serving seasonal menus, utilizing high quality ingredients, and providing nutrition education activities. We’ve heard of such farm to summer activities – the embedding of farm to school principles within summer meals programs – from practitioners all around the country. Here in the Northeast, summer 2016 brought a wave of coordinated programming, and National Farm to School Month is the perfect time to celebrate this trend that is supporting healthy kids and communities all year long!

Vermont: Farm to School 12 Months a Year

Last year, VT FEED secured funding from a local philanthropic partner, and embarked upon a mission to extend its robust farm to school training, coordination, and professional development services beyond the school year. The Farm to School 12-Months of the Year project provided local procurement training and guidance for summer sponsors, piloted summer meals sites over the weekend at two farmers markets, and ran food and nutrition-related activities at 10 summer sites. By continuing the strategies that have built robust farm to school programs over many years throughout the summertime, Vermont is creating consistent learning opportunities and year-round access to nutritious foods for kids across the state.

Massachusetts: Farmers Markets as Summer Meals Sites

Farm to summer strategies picked up steam elsewhere in the Northeast, as the Massachusetts Farm to School Project secured funding to support the opening of additional summer meals sites at natural access points for local foods and fun, healthy community activities: farmers markets! With additional planning and support from the Child Nutrition Outreach Program and Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, farmers market sites were piloted in five different communities across Massachusetts. By setting up a new site at the Greenfield, Mass., market, Greenfield Public Schools was able to add local fruits and vegetables to their menu from market producers and serve kids on Saturdays.

Connecticut: Service Members Launch Farm to Summer Programming

Building new elements of programming – like finding and buying local foods, promoting healthy menu items, running taste tests or gardening activities that get kids excited about summer meals – all take additional time and coordination. Partners in Connecticut tapped a school year resource to help sponsors make this programming possible. Fifteen FoodCorps and ten AmeriCorps service members were trained and supported by UCONN Extension, End Hunger CT!, and FoodCorps CT, with help from a USDA Farm to School Grant, and were perfectly positioned to run farm to summer activities at summer meals sites throughout the state. Local blueberry smoothies were a hit at Anna E. Norris Elementary School in East Hartford, and kept kids nourished and refreshed for their outdoor activities.

For more information on extending farm to school year-round through summer programs, check out USDA’s Farm to Summer Fact Sheet and other helpful resources at our farm to summer website.