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La Grande Pride
September 2019 • www.lagrandesd.org
DISTRICT BUYS LOCAL FOODS
Farm to School Program encourages local purchasing
the fl oor price for beef was
$1.03.
The Farm to School Pro-
Panike is a fl oor buyer,
gram is a nationwide move- and he makes prearrange-
ment to encourage school
ments with some of the
districts to buy local pro-
auction buyers, like Legacy
duce for school lunches. The or Barreto, to take their
La Grande School District
animals that they plan to
participates in this program turn back to the fl oor. The
and its buyer is business
auction buyer will look at
director Chris Panike.
Panike to see if he wants
“In the last biennium of
the animal, and if Panike
the Oregon legislature that gives him the yes nod, then
just closed, they allocated
the buyer indicates the ani-
$4.5 million in the state-
mal goes to the La Grande
wide budget to support the
School District at fl oor price.
Farm to School Program,”
Up goes Panike’s buyer’s
Panike said. “That money
number and the animal is
was divided up into educa-
the District’s. It works only
tion grants and procure-
because he has a relation-
ment grants. Each school
ship with the buyers.
district who signed up for
“At the last livestock
the Farm to School Program show, I bought six pigs and
was provided an alloca-
four steers,” he said. “The
tion of dollars to buy local
six pigs were raised by La
produce.”
Grande School District
The La Grande School
kids.”
District receives between
This was made possible
$7,000 and $8,000 a year to because not all districts had
buy Oregon grown and pro- spent their Farm to School
cessed foods for their food
allocations for the bien-
service program.
nium, which closed June 30.
“In the past three years,
La Grande School District
we bought salmon, cold
applied for some of these
water shrimp, asparagus,
unspent allocations, which
fresh-picked raspberries,
made it possible for them to
strawberries and local beef
buy extra animals. The tim-
and pork to be processed,”
ing of the Eastern Oregon
Panike said.
Livestock Show is perfect
He goes to the Eastern
for this program every other
Oregon Livestock show and year as the district can buy
utilizes the program funds
the animals and have them
he has remaining at the
processed before the close of
end of the budget period,
the biennium.
and he buys livestock at the
The animals must be
fl oor price. The fl oor price
USDA inspected and pro-
for hogs was 51 cents and
By Trish Yerges
Bryce Wagner, 13, attends La Grande Middle School, and he sold his pig
named “Bacon” that he raised on his grandmother’s farm on Hot Lake
Lane. The pig was purchased by Chris Panike for the La Grande School
District.
cessed, so he sends them to
Stafford’s in Elgin where
they do that. After they are
butchered and packaged,
they return the meat to the
school district for inclusion
in their food service pro-
gram. The meats are frozen
until they are used.
“I’m using Farm to School
money to do this because I
can’t afford to do this with
my regular food service pro-
gram budget,” Panike said.
“On a per pound cost, doing
it this way is two to three
times more expensive than
what I could buy through
the commercial food proces-
sors.”
The difference is that
this money is going to local,
smaller growers and not to
corporate growers.
The state legislature
recognizes that the local
producers cannot produce
meats competitively with
large corporate producers,
so they have started the
Farm to School Program to
connect local producers to
their local schools.
“Last year in December, I
went out to a local rancher
and bought fi ve hamburger
cows and had them pro-
cessed at Stafford’s,” Panike
said. “The difference is that
if I go out and buy it from
the rancher, I’m buying it
just from one person, but if
I go to the livestock show,
I’m buying it from many
students.”
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