Leah Cantor
Susan Higgins is a vendor of certified organic sprouts for the SPFS Farm to School program. She has sold at the Santa Fe Farmers Market since 1994.
For Elizabeth Cull, the director of Student Nutrition Services for Santa Fe Public Schools, there's nothing quite like seeing kids' excited expressions on the few precious days of summer when she can offer them something truly special: a handful of bright red cherries or a ripe peach fresh from a tree in a nearby orchard.
Local fruits are the rare gems of the district's Farm to School program, which supplies 24% of the produce the district purchases annually and gives many children the opportunity to try things they might never otherwise have access to.
"The big thing for me is the cherries, because they are expensive…so I know there are probably many families that don't ever buy those because they can't afford them," says Cull.
Even though COVID-19 has led to lower spending this year, SFPS has been putting local food onto children's plates for decades, developing a well-established system for procuring produce from small farmers in the surrounding area. In recent years Cull has worked with Kendal Chavez, the Farm to School specialist with the New Mexico Public Education Department, to expand the program to include farms across the state and smaller school districts that don't have the staff or capacity to organize local food programs on their own.
According to a Santa Fe Food Policy Council report presented to the city's Quality of Life Committee at a virtual meeting last week, SFPS has developed "one of the most advanced procurement systems in the country."
The Santa Fe Food Policy Council is asking the Legislature in the session set to begin in January to retain the $400,000 in recurring annual funding for the New Mexico Grown for School Meals program that helps fund farm to school programs at SFPS and other school districts. The council is also requesting sustained or additional funding for a number of other programs that support local farmers by feeding New Mexicans, including New Mexico Grown programs for senior centers and early childhood nutrition initiatives, and the Double Up Food Bucks program that doubles SNAP benefits when used to purchase food at local farmers markets.
This year, lawmakers cut about $68,000 from the budget for the New Mexico Grown program in light of the pandemic.
At the end of November, policy experts and lawmakers from across the state met virtually at a "Reimagining the New Mexico Food Economy" conference to discuss what they called the state's "food crisis." Most of the state meets the USDA qualifications for a "food desert" where access to healthy food is scarce. At the same time, 94% of locally grown food is exported out of state while 90% of what New Mexicans eat is imported from elsewhere, and 70% of farmers don't make a profit.
According to the report by the Santa Fe Food Policy Council, one in six children in Santa Fe County experienced hunger before the pandemic. Now, that number has risen to one in three.
Farmers are also feeling the strain of COVID-19.
Susan Higgins is a Santa Fe farmer who has sold certified organic sunflower sprouts and pea shoots to SFPS for nearly 20 years. Normally SFPS would purchase around 20 pounds of sprouts per week, but this year the district reduced its purchases, as has everybody else.
Higgins says her revenues have dropped by 40% during the pandemic despite that she still sells at the Santa Fe Farmers Market and at local coops in Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Taos. Still, she says, selling to SFPS plays a small but important role in keeping her afloat.
Higgins tells SFR over the years many parents have come up to her at the Farmers Market with positive feedback.
"They'd tell me this was the only greens their children would eat," she says. "Children love sprouts, and they are very nutrient-dense."
Kendal Chavez, from the PED, tells SFR Santa Fe's program is different from most Farm to School programs across the state and the country because SFPS organizes the procurement process for multiple smaller districts.
"Santa Fe's bid allows nine other districts across the state to also purchase local from 20 vendors…so Santa Fe is sort of acting like the hub or the anchor," says Chavez. "The fact that they are taking the administrative burden to allow for New Mexico farmers to have more market opportunity is definitely standout."
