This Blog offers all people interested in the Muskegon County Farm2School effort a place to post their questions, ideas, and projects for the entire community to see and join in on. If you have questions about the blog, please contact Chris Bedford at chrisbedford@charter.net or 231-893-3937.

On October 27th, the Farm2School Working Group met at the MAREC Building to discuss Dan Gorman's email comments.

I have pasted them in below.

 FROM:Dan Gorman

 I have some concerns

the direction the group is going.  I know we have a lot of passionate

people when it comes to healthy food in schools.  I think the issue is

most people in Muskegon County are not passionate.   If we want to make

this a viable organization I think we need consider the make up of

Muskegon County’s view on nutrition.   

I think our goal of 100% local and organic foods in school is a huge

stumbling block to get people on board with our initiative.  Even you

have said that stated goal is not likely to be 100% achievable and

almost all of the outsiders will look at the goal and discount our

group.

I think the original goals, which got me to first attend the meetings,

are broad enough to accomplish what our group wants and would have

universal acceptance in our community.

Original goals:

● Increase the offering of fruit and vegetables, nutritionally

dense and minimally processed, unrefined food and reduce unhealthy

(trans and saturated) fats and sweetened foods.

● Implement a program to identify and adopt sustainable food

procurement that supports local farmers and businesses.

● Work with local farmers, community based organizations and food

suppliers to increase the availability of fresh locally grown produce

without the use of toxic pesticides, hormones and non-therapeutic

antibiotics.

It would be really hard to say no I don’t want to increase the amount

of locally grown food and vegetables in our schools; but it is

incredibly easy to discount all food 100% local and organic.

I think our focus should be some health but heavy on economics.  The

example of alternative energy shows us that people are not interested

until gas is $4.00 per gallon.  We need to show people that this makes

economic sense and is good for kids.  If we can’t do that I think we

are doomed to fail.