ARLINGTON — The Sibley East School District has sprouted its own farm-to-school initiative, a growing fad in Minnesota school lunchrooms.

The lunchroom has been a rapidly evolving place in recent years as many schools have looked to reduce the number of high-fat, high-calorie foods with healthier, leaner alternatives. Most schools have now replaced soda pop and sugary drinks in favor of water and sports drinks while others have made simple changes like fruit cocktail packed in a lighter syrup and cooking with whole-grain pastas.

Farm-to-school, however, is an umbrella term for a variety of both federally and locally funded school lunch programs in which fresh meat, fruits and produce are shipped directly from the farm to the school cafeteria.

And in Sibley East, it’s the staff and students doing the farming.

“As rural as we are,” said Tim Uhlenkamp, Sibley East’s winner of 2010 Outstanding Young Ag Teacher award for south-central Minnesota, “it’s amazing how many kids have never planted a vegetable.”  

The idea germinated last spring between he and fellow ag teacher Jeff Eppen.

They started writing grants and talking with local officials of the county’s Statewide Health Improvement Program, a statewide effort to reduce smoking and obesity.

The teachers used the first grant — $5,500 from the Minnesota Agricultural Education Leadership Council — to prepare about an acre of land that was donated by the city of Arlington.

On May 30, staff and students sowed potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. About a month later, they planted squash, beans, peas, cucumbers and onions.

Uhlenkamp and Eppen have since received three more grants — $2,500 from Agstar Financial Services, $1,000 from the Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative and a $1,000 Meeker-McLeod-Sibley SHIP grant.

The school has already enjoyed its first harvest. Head cook Joan Budahn said the school has made pickles from the harvested cucumbers and frozen 40 gallons of beans. Potatoes, onions and tomatoes from the student farm have already appeared in meals and, soon, so will squash and pumpkins.

She said the processing is labor intensive but the tradeoff is in getting high-quality, healthy food from a local source.

“It’s more work for us,” she said, “but we know it’s going to be fresh.”

Uhlenkamp said a variety of high school students combine to do all the work on the farm, from horticulture students who conducted much of the planting in the spring to the FFA participants who weeded and tilled over the summer.

He said more classes will get involved this year, perhaps to help expand the farm and introduce it to younger students.

“Kids love it,” he said. “It’s been a great opportunity.”

The 3-year-old national Farm to School program involves more than 2,000 school districts in 45 states with dozens of similar programs created across Minnesota through local funds.