Farm to School Intensity Levels: A Systematic Review and Proposed Measurement Tool

Abstract

Farm to school (FTS) activities have recently experienced rapid growth as more schools commit to purchasing local foods, providing education about food, farming, health and the environment, and having school gardens. We systematically review quantitative peer reviewed FTS research presenting both outcome measures and reported FTS inputs. Our findings highlight ambiguity and variability in FTS inputs making any resulting outcomes difficult to generalize for policy makers. We propose a pre-tested intensity measurement tool which has the potential to standardize research in this area.