Putting Farm-to-School on Sweden’s sustainability menu

Abstract: The global food system plays a significant role in the sustainability challenge. One way to approach such a complex problem is to provide a science-based, functional definition of success, and then to find leverage points in the system that can force change. Because they are accessed by all children, we see food education and responsibly sourced school food as such leverage points. Farm-to-School is a US concept which encourages schools to provide classroom food education, a garden, and locally produced food in the school restaurant. We explored how the Farm-to-School concept might move the Swedish public-school system, in a strategic way, towards sustainability, using the municipality of Karlskrona as an example. We interviewed stakeholders in Karlskrona to understand the current system, and what the benefits of Farm-to-School and the obstacles to implementation might be. We also interviewed stakeholders in the US, to gain knowledge about their experience of Farm-toSchool. We found that in Karlskrona there are some initiatives but restrictive regulations hindered innovation and local procurement, insufficient leadership meant there was no unified vision to work towards, collaboration was absent and not encouraged, and there was a shortage of resources. We therefore do not advise implementing Farm-to-School at present.