Iowa Food System Coalition’s Statement on USDA’s Harvest to Hallways Initiative

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2026
Tommy Hexter,
Executive Director
Iowa Food System Coalition

Iowa Food System Coalition’s Statement on USDA’s Harvest to Hallways Initiative

There’s a lot to applaud in this announcement. This new investment in school kitchen infrastructure is especially important, as lacking the proper equipment has been a major barrier to schools utilizing local food in recent years. Schools need the equipment, cold storage and kitchen capacity to actually prepare more fresh, locally grown food.

We also celebrate the investment in research to better understand how schools can improve the nutritional quality of meals and make nutrition guidelines more accessible and easier for school nutrition directors to put into practice. It has been 16 years since the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was put into place, and updating the guidelines to reflect new research will go a long way toward modernizing and improving the nutritional quality of meals on students’ plates.

We’re particularly interested in USDA’s announcement of a “Local Option” for school procurement. It’s notable that USDA describes this as an existing pathway, while the National Farm to School Network has been working on developing new pathways that would allow schools to direct existing USDA Foods entitlement dollars toward minimally processed, locally sourced food. Farm to school advocates are pushing for that flexibility to be included in the Farm Bill so it becomes a permanent part of federal policy.

The Rule Expanding Geographic Preference for Child Nutrition Program Purchasing was finalized by USDA in 2024, but many questions remain about how to use the program and its spending limits.

The need for certainty and substantial funding is especially clear after USDA canceled $660 million in anticipated Local Food for Schools funding nationally in 2025, despite the program’s demonstrated success connecting schools with local farmers and strengthening local food supply chains. Compared to Harvest to Hallways, Local Food for Schools was a much larger program, but because it was not congressionally authorized, it was vulnerable to being discontinued by a new administration in 2025.

That program cut has left farmers reeling. Schools and farmers need programs they can count on long enough to build purchasing relationships, invest in infrastructure and plan production.

We hope new farm-to-school programs, including the Local Option, are scaled up to a similar size as Local Food for Schools and authorized through the Farm Bill so they are durable and cannot simply be expanded, cut or reversed from one administration to the next.

###

About the Iowa Food System Coalition

The Iowa Food System Coalition (IFSC) is a community of over 60 organizational partners and 600 individuals with professional and lived expertise, united to advance a thriving, sustainable, and equitable food system in Iowa. Through Setting the Table for All Iowans, our strategic roadmap, IFSC is leading efforts to increase local food consumption, build resilient rural communities, create economic opportunities, and improve the health of Iowans.

Find photography, b-roll and additional media resources at iowafoodsystemcoalition.org/newsroom.