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Abstract
Excerpts: Since the passage of the National School Lunch Act in 1946, key legislation has played an essential role in providing our Nation's children with access to healthier meals. Programs like the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) have provided, and continue to provide, nutritionally balanced and low-cost or free meals and snacks to children each school day. As early as 1997, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) began an effort to connect farms to the school meal programs. For purposes of this document, Farm to School is defined as efforts to serve regionally and locally produced food in school cafeterias, with a focus on those that participate in the Child Nutrition Programs. Farm to institution efforts are also included, which bring the Farm to School model in organizations or establishments such as hospitals or correctional facilities. This bibliography attempts to represent selected documentation from a wide range of resources: peer reviewed literature databases, organizational Web sites, report citations, conference proceedings, Cooperative Extension Service publications, and more. Information resources for Farm to School activities are underrepresented in the formally published academic literature. Most materials exist as informal papers and research reports on individual organizational Web sites or as articles in regional/local news, trade and popular publications. This bibliography pulls together many substantial materials on Farm to School efforts across the United States. Some citations include links to full-text documents; most do not; or only provide links to publisher Web sites. All publications cited are in English, and most were produced in the past two decades, but we have included a few older publications to provide historical context of Farm to School efforts in the United States.