Where to start? Farm to school is a complicated system. There are many ways we could intervene and create change, but some work better than others. And if farm to school is going to realize its ambitious vision, we need to act strategically and coordinate dozens of players, organizations, and stakeholders to move together towards a common goal.

So in 2014 Vermont FEED, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, and the Vermont Farm to School Network convened a strategic systems mapping process. We came together with more than 60 farm to school leaders to understand how we can collaborate and take action to spark the change we wanted and make this vision a reality.

60 participants + 6 months + 180 system components = 5 clear strategies for change

We started creating our strategy by identifying our current state of reality, mapping our system, defining our goal, and identifying four key leverage points that have the potential to radically change the system. Here's what it looks like:

We then formed action teams around each leverage point. Each team identified strategies and a series of short term  projects that can have big impacts on the leverage points in our system. Several times each year we come back together to review progress, adjust course, confirm our next steps, and get to work again.

Our current action teams are: Ease of Use, Educational Value, Policy and Demand, Supply Innovation, Research and Evaluation, and Farm to Early Childhood.

The Process

We want a better future. Farm to school can help us get there.

Farm to school is part of a complex tangle of personal choices, school policies and town budgets, food supply chains, weather conditions, regulations and legislation, educational standards, funding, and much more.

One key decision or action can ripple throughout the entire system. No one is in charge, and everyone is in charge. That's a complex adaptive system.

If farm to school is going to bring the change we desire, we must act strategically to find a tipping point in that beautiful tangle. Systems thinking can help us do that.

Strategic Mapping Framework

1. What's our current situation? What is the state of farm to school in Vermont—our schools, communities, kids, and farms? What are we trying to achieve, and how far are we from getting there? What do success and failure look like?
2. What structure is causing that reality? What are the different components of our system—people, policies, conditions? How do they relate to each other? Which ones drive changes in which other ones, and why?
3. Where can we intervene to change that structure and reality? Which of those factors are the most powerful leverage points? Which ones need to be addressed first? Which ones can we impact or change?
4. How can we make structural, and then behavioral changes? What actions can we take together to move those leverage points? Which actions will get us the farthest, fastest?
5. How do we need to be, as individuals and a group, in order to create change? How do we need to act and interact? How should we be organized? How should we move forward?

The Vermont Farm to School Network came together in 2014 to answer those questions through a Strategic Mapping process.

Over six months, more than 60 farm to school stakeholders and Network members:

• Mapped out more than 180 components of Vermont's farm to school system
• Identified 38 components that are critical for sparking change in the system
• Narrowed those down to four key leverage points
• Formed five strategic action teams and launched projects

Dig into each stage below, and learn how we figured out this beautiful, complex system:

Mapping the System & Understanding Reality

In 2014, Vermont had 89,000 students, 7,338 farms, 334 schools and school districts, 251 cities and towns, 180 legislators, dozens of policies and programs that affect farm to school, hundreds of farms and non-profits and practitioners, and 15.5 million school meals served annually. That's all part of the farm to school system.

In order to rapidly expand the farm to school system, we need to know how all those factors relate, which ones drive change in which other ones, and which ones are the most important to focus on. So we mapped the system. Our process started with 22 individual interviews with food system leaders focused on the change they were trying to cause in their work. Then in subgroups, they explored the four key themes that emerged from the interviews: food supply, government, school development, and community development, drafting goals for each of those sectors. Scott facilitated the combination of the subgroups' goals into one draft overarching goal for the whole farm to school system and finally created a map of that whole system.

Finding Leverage Points & Alignment

After the subgroup meetings, Scott applied four different analytical techniques to the farm to school system map, to identify critical drivers of change. The results: 38 of the 180 map components emerged as powerful drivers in the farm to school system. Scott then looked at the logical flow of variables (which ones need to happen first, in order to drive change in others), and identified four key leverage points that appear to be the most powerful opportunities to intervene in the system

With a system map, shared goal, and leverage points in hand, the whole group of farm to school leaders gathered for a two-day strategy summit and confirmed the magnitude and direction of the goal*: 

By 2025, 75% of Vermont Schools will lead the cultural shift to a values-based food system that engages 75% of our students in integrated food system education; community-based learning; nourishing universal meals; and the experience of self-efficacy; purchasing at least 50% from a socially just and environmentally and financially sustainable regional food system.

*In 2022, the Network refreshed the goal to better reflect our work and vision.

Read more about the current goals.

Audacious? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely. Perfect? No. The point was not to hone in on a perfect goal, but rather to find a point in the distance that could get everyone moving in the same direction with the same urgency.

Then the group agreed on the leverage points that could drive change in the system and got to work. Five action teams developed specific goals and brainstormed strategies to move toward those goals. They created "rapid prototypes" of their best strategies, then revised and improved, revised and improved.

What did they come up with? Five pretty impressive ideas (the original five actions teams):

1. Ease of Use: Getting a sustainability coordinator in every supervisory union, to embed sustainability in school and community cultures.
2. Economic Value: To have the evidence that demonstrates the economic value of farm to school versus non-farm to school.
3. Supply Innovation: Creating a dataset of school food preferences and products, leading to supply chain innovation
4. Educational Value: Exemplar farm to school programs in 50% of supervisory unions.
5. Farm to School Demand: Passing a farm to school bill with universal school meals with >25% regional food, training and data collection.

The summit finished with clear alignment, clear agreement on leverage points, and clear strategies for making change. Next up: making it happen.

Planning for Action

It's not easy to walk straight toward a point far off in the distance. It's so hard, in fact, that if you're orienteering — literally charting a course with a map and compass — you never walk straight toward your target. You pick a nearby point that's in the path you need to travel, walk to that point, and then pick another one. Each time you get a little closer and adjust your path before starting again.

Align, Act, Adjust. That's a rapid feedback loop, and it's exactly what the Farm to School Network is doing. Initially, each team chose a 90-day project: an achievable and important first step that would get them headed in the right direction and on the path toward their goals. At the action summit, the teams broke down those projects into discrete steps, identified resources and needs, and laid out clear plans for meeting, communication, and coordinating with the other teams. Then we came back together to report on progress, check alignment, and start out again towards the next 90 day target. We repeated that cycle every 4-5 months, moving closer to our goals.

To coordinate communication, each team identified one person who would serve as a link to a "common circle." The common circle meets monthly to make overarching decisions for the group, allocate funding, identify gaps, coordinate efforts and communication, measure progress, and ensure that the whole group is moving toward the goal. Each link brings updates and feedback from the individual teams and reports back on the progress of the whole.

The Reality

The Vermont Farm to School Network formed to help make sure every Vermont student and school community is engaged in a local food and farm culture that nurtures children’s health, cultivates viable farms and builds vibrant communities.

Our Network includes teachers, administrators, food service staff, parents, farmers, funders, practitioners, nonprofits, agencies, advocates, students, distributors, suppliers, and more.

But that's still not good enough. We have a long way to go, and we can't get there by growing one school at a time.

We need to hit a tipping point that sparks exponential growth.

We need to make farm to school just part of what we do here in Vermont.

Learn more about why farm to school and early childhood matters and how it is making a difference in Vermont.

The System

By 2025, 75% of Vermont Schools will lead the cultural shift to a values-based food system that:

• engages 75% of our students in integrated food system education, community-based learning, nourishing universal meals, and the experience of self-efficacy
• purchases at least 50% of food from a socially just, environmentally and financially sustainable regional food system.

That's the goal for the entire system. It's meant to point us in the right direction, set the right magnitude, and help us align our strategies.

Where can we possibly intervene to change this system?

First you identify the most powerful variables. If we can solve or influence these, we stand a chance at shifting the whole. This map shows the 38 most critical components of the farm to school system. 

But we can get simpler still. All 38 are not equal: five stand out as being essential to progress. These are the system's primary leverage points.

1. Relative Value. We need to demonstrate that FTS (including curriculum and classroom work, school meal programs, local purchasing and more) has strong economic value, relative to programs without FTS components. We need to look at both short-term value (like the cost of local apples for this week's school lunches, vs. apples from out of state) and long-term value (like the difference in spending dollars locally makes to our communities’ health and farm viability) We also need to document the educational benefits of FTS. We need to show that kids who participate in FTS are more engaged in learning with fewer absences and behavior disruptions, and greater engagement leads to better educational outcomes.. We need to show that FTS can provide job training skills and has lifelong benefits.
2. Policy Demand. Vermont once led the nation in state policies and funding that support FTS. But it's time to do more. We need policies supporting universal school meals and local purchasing. We need funding to expand and innovate in Farm to School programming. We need legislators to see FTS as a key strategy in tackling other top legislative issues, including healthcare cost containment, education priorities and economic development.
3. Supply & Profitability. Local foods are a cornerstone of FTS. We need to make it profitable for local farms to sell their product to schools, and practical for schools to buy it. We need to understand the barriers and opportunities for each, and develop innovations to make local purchasing possible.
4. Market & Network Coordination. Above all else, we need to make FTS easy. We need to make it simple for food service staff to find, purchase, cook and serve local foods. We need to make it easy for administrators to understand the benefits and implement FTS programs. We need to make it seamless for teachers to integrate FTS into their classrooms and curriculums, and for community members to get involved.

The Action

Align deeply. Act quickly. Adjust often. With clear leverage points offering clear opportunities to move, we're off and running. Action teams are making progress on our five leverage points and tipping the scales toward a world in which farm to school is the norm.

Making Farm to School Easy to Use
Goal: Increase the capacity for farm to school coordination through professional development and more efficient access to resources.

Demonstrating the Economic Value of Farm to School
Goal: Building the data, evidence and a compelling case to show the relative value of farm to school vs. non- farm to school for legislators and decision-makers.

Demonstrating the Educational Value of Farm to School
Goal: Build a strong commitment for farm to school from key leaders in education, and create a stronger alignment between farm to school and current priority initiatives in education.

Innovating in Local Food Supply & Procurement
Goal: Facilitate an increase in getting local food into the school food supply chain with a focus on making the system easier to use for both the producers and the school buyers.

Creating Policy & Demand for Farm to School
Goal: Deepen relationships with legislators and develop new champions. Increase state farm to school and early childhood grants program funding to $500,000, and fully fund the Local Food Purchasing Incentive at $500,000.

In 2020, Farm to Early Childhood was added as a sixth action team, and the Network changed its name to the Vermont Farm to School & Early Child Network.
Goal: Expand farm to early childhood opportunities to a greater number of Vermont children, families, and communities and institutionalizing and embedding farm to early childhood into state and local early childhood systems.

Explore the current work of our Network Action Teams and learn how to get involved.