The 2011 Farm to School Regional Feasibility Study The inaugural Ohio Farm to School Conference was held in Cleveland Ohio on March 31, 2011. The purpose of the map to the right and this study was to determine the feasibility of holding an annual state-wide conference or smaller, regional workshops throughout the state. The Farm to School Conference was planned as a way of educating school districts, farmers, and other advocacy groups on the various ways to create programs to bring better nutrition and farming curriculum into our state’s schools. Other states have achieved success with this endeavor, while Ohio’s activities have been sporadic and few. This was the first state-wide conference held in Ohio to bring the necessary parties together. The Farm to School Conference not only addressed the nutritional needs of our youngsters, but as a by-product of the regional cooperation between farms and schools, also tackled the environmental issues created by transporting huge amounts of food across the United States, and discussed ways to bring farmers into the classroom. With the spirit of the conference in mind the Farm to School Attendees per County map was created to asses whether or not it would make sense to hold smaller, regional workshops across the state, or perhaps another conference in either Columbus, or Cincinnati. As you can see from the map it appears as though there is a significant cluster of people that traveled from the Columbus area and some surrounding counties to the North-East of Franklin County 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
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Top 15 Counties by Farm to School Attendees 20
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While it may be impossible to accurately gauge future attendance at different conference locations, one could infer from this map that it would make sense to host the second state-wide conference in Columbus, thus drawing more attendance from the surrounding counties of Union, Madison, and Pickaway counties. As far as regional workshops are concerned, the majority of the conference participants are looking forward to regional workshops. In addition, 77.5% of participants surveyed want to engage directly with the farmers. This proves that regional workshops would be well attended. Finally, these regional workshops could go a long way in bridging the gap into the outlying regions that are not connected through the state’s interstate highway system.