For This School District, the Cafeteria Menu is Anything but Ordinary

Mushy steamed veggies and mystery meat are a thing of the past at the Holmen School District in Holmen, Wisc. In part because times and nutritional standards have changed, but mainly because the students in the high school’s FFA program play a huge part in supplying the proteins, vegetables and fruits to the district’s cafeterias in its Farm-2-School movement. What began in 2008 as an FFA student’s capstone project to grow hydroponic lettuce has exploded into acres of fresh fruits and vegetables, a 75-tree apple orchard and a pork, beef and poultry operation. “We decided we’d grow some vegetables and bedding plants, but we can’t compete with Walmart [for distribution], so we thought, ‘No one is growing food for the school lunch program. Let’s start there.’ And it’s been just awesome after that,” says Roger King, FFA advisor and Agriscience teacher at Holmen High School. On the protein side, the students began by raising chickens, then added hogs, lamb and in 2018, beef cattle, spanning the gamut of animals typically raised for consumption...MORE