During Homegrown School Lunch Week from September 19th-23rd, MCPS students will have the opportunity to enjoy a variety of fruits and vegetables grown on Maryland farms, including grape tomatoes, peaches, celery sticks, plums, corn, melon, and more. Maryland Homegrown School Lunch is an element of the Maryland Farm to School program, which strives to bring locally produced foods into school cafeterias and provide hands-on-learning activities, such as farm visits, producers visiting schools, school gardening and culinary classes. In addition, the Farm to School program focuses on the integration of food-related education into the standards-based classroom curriculum.
Maryland ranks fifth in the nation for the amount of local food served in schools, with 21 percent of its school food budgets spent on Maryland-grown products, according to the USDA’s recently released Farm to School Census. Maryland was the first state in the nation to have every public school system participate in the Maryland Homegrown School Lunch. With more than 2 million acres of farmland and more than 12,000 farms in Maryland, MCPS students will enjoy a wide variety of locally-grown produce this week while learning about Maryland agriculture.
Click here for more information on the Maryland Farm to School Program.