News

Michigan cuts 10 Cents a Meal Program after a decade of success supporting schools and local farmers

Farm-to-School advocates say eliminating Michigan’s 10 Cents a Meal Program is a step backward in supporting local food systems and farmers.

Director of Farm to Institution Programs May Tsupros at the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems tells Brownfield the program has served as a national model for local food procurement.

“The states that have been funding programs similarly for 3-4 years now have been reaching out and saying, ‘What does that mean for our state program?’” they share. “Michigan has always been a model of what’s working, and so should we be fearing the loss of our state-funded programs?”

The state has invested $35.5 million in the program over the past decade in matching grants to schools and education providers.

Amanda Brezzell is with Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities, the communications partner for the 10 Cents a Meal Program.

“It has provided space for our Michigan farmers, our small farmers, our specialty crop farmers to have outlets, to have avenues for scaling up their businesses, to meet the demands of, let’s say, a school with 500 kids or more, or a district,” they explain.

While state lawmakers approved free school meals for the next fiscal year, Brezzell says supporting local farmers with those dollars is not a given.

“It’s going to be up to a school to say this is still an investment that’s necessary to make, and we’re going to fund it however we can,” they say. “But ultimately, schools shouldn’t have to make those kinds of decisions.”

Tsupros says the program has served as a launching pad for several other food system initiatives in the state, but with its elimination, it’s time to rethink institutional involvement.

“We need institutional commitments,” they urge. “That means commitments from not only schools but also hospitals, prison systems, senior centers, tribes, where they are committing to purchasing local, and then we need to rethink this bigger picture.”

Tsupros says future programs should also integrate meat, dairy, and grains into local purchasing efforts to support even more farmers.

The 10 Cents a Meal Program had record participation last year, reaching more than 600,000 students in nearly 80 percent of Michigan counties.

More than a dozen other states fund local food incentive programs, most of which Tsupros says were built off Michigan’s model.