What is Farm to Early Care?
Farm to Early Care initiatives connect young children with nutritious, locally-grown foods and support farmers in their communities.
Farm to Early Care projects include at least one of these three core strategies:
Serving locally-grown foods in Early Care meals and snacks
Offering food and farming-related educational activities for children
Gardening and growing food with children
With young children, it should also be noted the important role of family engagement, and organizing food and farming-related engagement activities
What kind of settings includes Farm to Early Care activities?
Farm to Early Care activities can happen in any type of early care setting, including:
Preschools, both stand-alone and integrated into K-12 settings
Child care centers
Family child care homes
Head Start and Early Head Start
Farm to Early Care is good for kids, good for farmers and good for communities.
Classmates taste testing farm to school salads in St. Paul.
Janssen Hang, executive director of the Hmong American Farmers Association, speaks with USDA members.
Members of the community joining the Land Stewardship Project and Clean Rivers Partners touring farms in MN.
Why is it so beneficial?
Children try delicious local foods during a key window of opportunity as they are developing taste preferences and eating habits. Studies show they eat more servings and more varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables per day, laying the groundwork for reducing obesity and diet-related disease and increasing lifelong health.
Participating farmers gain access to a new market to sell their items and benefit from being able to plan ahead and potentially make larger sales than they could at the farmer’s market.
Communities strengthen relationships, and local purchases keep money circulating to support local businesses and neighbors.
It’s a win-win-win.
Farm to Early Care is growing in Minnesota!
Minnesota has a vibrant community of Farm to Early Care stakeholders across the state. Sign up here for our quarterly newsletter where we will share resources, highlight funding opportunities and lift up innovative success stories—and join our Facebook group to ask questions, share your experiences, and find out about resources and upcoming events!