The reauthorization of the US Farm to School Act, which came into effect in July 2023, has quietly transformed the way states approach transparency in farm-to-table initiatives for K–12 schools. While the spirit of the law has always been about supporting local agriculture and ensuring healthier meals for students, this latest update places stronger emphasis on traceability. For state agriculture departments, this means building or enhancing systems that don’t just track purchases but actually map local farm suppliers to the school menus those purchases support. And that’s no small task, especially given the varied and sometimes fragmented nature of local food supply chains.
One of the clearest paths to achieving this new level of traceability is to make better use of existing open data—specifically, the USDA’s open-data farm registry. This registry, while not perfect, offers a broad database of registered farms, their locations, production types, and certifications. State-level teams can use this as a foundation, linking farm-level data with procurement records from school districts. The idea isn’t just to know that a school bought lettuce or apples or milk, but to identify and report where those items came from, down to the specific farm whenever possible.
Integrating the USDA’s registry with K–12 procurement systems isn’t necessarily as straightforward as it might sound. State agriculture departments will need to work with local school districts, their food service vendors, and farm cooperatives to match supplier data with purchase orders. This often requires cleaning up supplier names in procurement records, because what appears in a school’s order system might not exactly match the farm’s official name in the USDA registry. A farm might be listed as “Green Valley Farms LLC” in the registry but show up as “Green Valley” or “GVF” in purchase records. These discrepancies need to be reconciled for traceability to work properly.
So, what might a state-level team’s step-by-step approach look like? First, start by downloading the latest USDA farm registry data—this can usually be obtained in a CSV format. Next, create a cleaned supplier list from recent K–12 procurement data, standardizing farm names and ensuring location data (such as city and state) is included. With these two data sets in hand, teams can run a basic match, looking for exact and fuzzy matches on farm names and locations. Any unmatched records should be flagged for manual review—this is where local knowledge and outreach come in handy.
Once matches have been established, the next phase is mapping farm coordinates to school menus. This might sound complicated, but the idea is fairly straightforward: link each ingredient or food item on a menu back to the farm (or farms) that supplied it. This can be done at the ingredient level for fresh produce, dairy, and meats, or at the product level for processed items that still fall under the Farm to School sourcing guidelines. The mapping process ideally results in a visual or tabular output that shows, for example, that the apples in a school’s lunch program this month came from Orchard A in County X, while the milk came from Dairy B in County Y.
There’s no one-size-fits-all technology solution for this. Some states may choose to build a simple dashboard using off-the-shelf data tools like Tableau or Power BI, drawing data directly from the USDA registry and school procurement systems. Others might integrate these data streams into existing state agriculture department portals, providing a centralized location for reporting and visualization. In either case, it’s important to think about how this data will be used—not just for internal accountability, but also for public transparency reports that showcase the reach and impact of Farm to School programs.
A key challenge states will face is ensuring that this traceability effort doesn’t overburden small farms or school districts. Not all small producers have the administrative capacity to regularly update registry data, and not all schools have procurement systems that easily export clean data for matching. This is where state-level support comes in—offering training, tools, and in some cases, direct technical assistance to help both ends of the chain participate effectively. Building templates for farm self-declarations, offering supplier code lists that schools can use in ordering systems, or even setting up helplines for matching queries are all options that states might explore.
And while the 2023 reauthorization focuses primarily on encouraging transparency rather than mandating specific reporting formats, there’s a growing expectation—from both regulators and the public—that farm-to-school traceability will become the norm. The question is no longer whether schools should know where their food comes from, but how deeply and efficiently that knowledge can be integrated into day-to-day operations. State agriculture departments have a crucial role to play in making that happen, helping schools bridge the gap between aspiration and execution.
As states move forward with these traceability initiatives, it’s worth remembering that the ultimate goal isn’t just compliance or reporting—it’s fostering stronger connections between local farms and schools, supporting regional economies, and ensuring that students have access to fresh, local food. Getting the data right is part of that mission, but so too is building relationships and trust across the supply chain. The 2023 Farm to School Act reauthorization offers both a challenge and an opportunity on that front—and success will depend on how well states rise to meet it.