Hardesty also found that buyers were willing to pay the highest premium for organic produce, but only 18% more for produce grown on a small- or mid-scale farm. Premiums for food with the criteria of sustainably grown, local, and grown on a farm paying living wage for farmworkers all averaged 24%. However, between one-fourth and one third of the respondents indicated that they would not pay any premium for produce with these criteria.Based on Hardesty’s findings, it will take a major shift in current purchasing practices for more individual growers and grower collaboratives to break into the institutional market. Her results indicate that by far the majority of buyers purchase from produce distributors; 10% also purchase from individual growers, 9% from grower collaboratives, 7% from farmers’ markets, 7% from various retailers, and 6% from campus farms. Says Hardesty, “Of the buyers interviewed, 45% are currently purchasing from one vendor and many prefer to keep this single supplier structure to simplifly their ordering and delivery logistics.” Gail Feenstra, Jeri Ohmart, square plant pots and Tracy Perkins of the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program are interviewing farmers and distributors in order to better understand the challenges and opportunities offered by selling to institutional buyers .

They developed a typology of five distribution models by which local produce gets to institutional buyers: Direct farmer to institution model; Grower/shipper/packer distribution; Non-profit allied distributor; Regional distributor; and Broadline distributor. They created three interview protocols for: institutional food service buyers, distributors, and farmers. The research team completed almost 95 interviews and a survey on transaction costs was given to interviewees. These data are now being analyzed.Building a data set is important, but equally critical is giving stakeholders the opportunity to share ideas with each other. As part of the study’s outreach component, Anya Fernald, Aliza Wasserman, and other members of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers organized a Farm to Institution Connection event, held July 25th in Oakland, which brought ninety participants together to discuss barriers and solutions for institutions to source food from local small growers. Also taking part were a dozen small farmers from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, who displayed their produce and provided samples and cooking ideas. A panel presentation by Michael Dimock, Executive Director of Roots of Change, Lisa McEuean, Regional V.P. of Bon Appetit Management Company, and Elizabeth Baily of Kaiser Permanente Food and Nutrition Services, addressed problems with conventional sourcing and solutions employed in leading local food programs, such as Bon Appetit’s Farm to Fork vendor program and Low Carbon Diet, which stress seasonal produce purchased from within a 150-mile radius of each café. Participants also took part in small group discussions about the challenges, solutions, and resources needed to help build market connections between family farmers and institutional buyers, covering topics such as packaging expectations, ripeness level when picking, administrative support, cost of processing, and local food distribution options.

Institutional buyers at the event included representatives from Fresh & Natural Inc., UCSC Dining Services, Cal Dining at UC Berkeley, Sodexho at UC Davis, UCSF Medical Center, Oakland Unified School District and ARAMARK. As Wasserman noted in an article in CAFF’s newsletter, Agrarian Advocate , “Many institutional buyers were delighted to learn about existing distributors that deliver local food—such as ALBA Organics and CAFF’s own Growers Collaborative.” Evaluations of the event revealed that networking is important to this group of people and that they want to hear examples of how farm-to-institution is working for others. According to the research team, this feedback will shape future activities, to ensure that research dissemination also includes opportunities for stories to be shared and provides chances for networking. Such flexibility is a hallmark of this project, which integrates not only researchers from different disciplines and university campuses, but includes an advisory team representing key stakeholder groups to make sure the research is relevant to the actual situations that stakeholders encounter. The involvement of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers also ensures that the information generated by the researchers gets out to the relevant community, farmer, and business groups. In reflecting on the farm-to-institution project’s work to date, Allen is impressed with this degree of integration amongst its various components. “What’s unique about the project is combining research, education and extension simultaneously.” The interest that the interviews, surveys, and networking events have generated in the community is positive and growing.

There is clearly a demand for information on how to facilitate successful farm to institution relationships, and the research team is already looking at expanding the project to a broader group of stakeholders and addressing the specific issues that are being discovered in the process.Efforts to bring sustainably produced food to college campuses are taking off around the nation, with Cali- fornia leading the way—thanks in large part to work taking place at UC Santa Cruz through the campus’s Food Systems Working Group . Tim Galarneau and Nancy Vail, who coordinate farm-to college efforts for the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems , are key players in a variety of activities designed to increase the sustainability of campus food systems while creating educational opportunities for students. The goals seem modest enough: give freshmen a chance to spend time on a farm. Let them get their hands dirty as they dig carrots, turn compost, and plant seeds. Give them a chance to enjoy the organic produce they harvested at their dining hall that night. Ask them who grew the wheat for their morning cereal, and how far it traveled to get to their breakfast plate. That’s the point of the Harvest for Health Program—simple steps that can get freshmen to start thinking about their connections with the food system. And while basic, such actions can have a profound influence on students who may have given little thought to where their food comes from or the impact of their eating choices. “You can see and feel in them the disconnect they’ve experienced when it comes to food,” says Vail, who coordinates the CASFS effort to bring freshman students to the UCSC Farm. “It’s a huge gap that we attempt to narrow by showing them where some of their food is grown.” This year nearly 200 students participated in Harvest for Health as part of the Sustainability Service program, a project of College Eight’s “core course” for freshmen. Three times a week, CASFS staff members and senior Environmental Studies student David Evershed welcomed a new group of students to the UCSC Farm, where they discussed food system initiatives at UCSC as well as sustainable agriculture at the Farm and beyond. During their visit, students also harvested organic produce that was prepared that evening in their dining hall. The program is supported in part by grants from the Wallace Genetic Foundation and the True North Foundation, The experience leaves an impression; says Vail, “The students understand more about the importance of buying organic, and how great it is to taste something they just picked. Every single one of the Harvest for Health students wants to come back and participate in some way at the Farm.” In the spring, these freshmen and others can take a two-credit course, Introduction to Organic Farming, garden pots square that brings students to the UCSC Farm each week for an in-depth look at agroecology and farming. For the second year CASFS also offered students shares in its Community Supported Agriculture program, entitling them to a weekly box of fresh organic produce grown at the Farm. Says Vail, “Thanks to the budding relationship between UCSC Dining Services and the UCSC Farm, students were able to pay for their CSA shares with their meal plan flexi-dollars.”

Each meal plan holder receives $50 in flexi-dollars to spend per quarter, and can combine flexi-dollars with their apartment-mates to cover the cost of a share, or pay with a check. “The fall shares filled up quickly and we had a waiting list of 20–30 more students wanting to join in the future,” says Vail.Seven farms, including the UCSC Farm, make up the Monterey Bay Organic Farmers Consortium and supply the UCSC campus with locally grown organic produce. Last year, the consortium provided 24% of the produce used in campus dining halls. “This year, we hope to increase that to 30% through building greater relationships between meal plan holders, chefs, and the MBOFC growers,” says Galarneau, who also coordinates farm-to-college education and policy efforts through CASFS and the campus’s Food Systems Working Group . As one of the next steps toward increasing the variety of sustainable products offered on campus, FSWG is assessing the feasibility of establishing a regional dairy contract. The goal is to build a relationship with a dairy vendor that would provide hormone-free and organic dairy options. Building upon dairy as well as other humane and local sourcing opportunities, FSWG is also working with UCSC food service managers on ways to further incorporate education into the eating experience. Candy Berlin, Special Projects Coordinator for UCSC Dining Services, and her team have created in-house educational displays, posters, table tents, and other materials to engage diners in thinking about the hidden connections and relationships embedded in the food they eat. In addition to sourcing local products, UCSC Dining Services is examining its use of products that contain genetically modified organisms . Following the July conference of the National Association of College and University Food Services, where Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception spoke, UCSC Dining Services began exploring steps to go “GMO free” in the campus dining halls. Says Galarneau, “Dining Services is taking the lead on this, looking at ‘back of the house’ products such as cooking oil and other items that could be replaced with GMO-free products. They are looking into how they can thoughtfully shift their purchasing and educate their staff.” In January 2008, Smith will visit UCSC to discuss a GMO-free plan and help develop a model that can be used at other institutions. This year, in an effort to reduce its overall “carbon footprint,” UCSC’s Physical Plant undertook a campus-wide Sustainability Assessment. As part of that effort, Dining Services and FSWG crafted a comprehensive food systems section of the survey. “UCSC’s campus-wide sustainability assessment, due to be completed at the end of 2007, offers a model for other campuses that want to achieve green goals in the context of the broader campus sustainability movement. We’ve developed an excellent model for the food component of an assessment, which can be used by other campuses to evaluate their food system,” says Galarneau.In mid October, Galarneau met with student representatives from California’s UC campuses, state colleges, and community colleges as part of the California Student Sustainability Coalition annual convergence, which took place at UC Berkeley. This statewide effort focuses on reducing climate impacts of campus operations through sustainable building, transportation, and food programs. Says Galarneu, “This was an opportunity to share ‘best practices’ with students throughout the state’s college systems, and helped us lay a foundation for our upcoming national partnership project, the Real Food Challenge.” This new national campaign is being planned to unite students and campus stakeholders in an effort to create sustainable food systems by drafting common goals and a common framework for bringing “real food” to college campuses. Galarneau is one of 15 design team members working to develop the campaign. “We’re defining ‘real food’ as food that is ethically produced, with fair treatment of workers, equitable relationships with farmers, and humanely treated animals. It’s food that is environmentally sustainable—grown without intensive chemical pesticides, large-scale mono-cropping, or huge carbon footprints,” says Galarneau. California will be one of three regional hubs for the Real Food effort, slated for “rollout” in fall of 2008. In early November, Real Food Challenge members hosted a New England Summit to begin to build the Challenge’s Northeast network. According to Galarneau, California and the CSSC will host a similar West Coast Summit in the spring of 2008 with the goal of uniting students from across the post-secondary education spectrum leading into the statewide Sustainability Conference slated for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in June of 2008. During his recent East coast swing, Galarneau also spoke at a national conference at the University of Maryland that brought together over 3,400 youth leaders working on climate change to link climate and food systems .