It's lunchtime at Northwestern Elementary outside Baton Rouge.
The school's kindergarteners pick out a box of milk and place it on a tray. There's fried chicken, a roll, a vegetable of their choice, and some pineapple.
"I ate it all," said a 5-year-old with a gap-toothed grin, pointing to his empty fruit cup.
Yesterday was Taco Tuesday. Bianca Coats is the school nutrition supervisor for Zachary Community Schools, which includes Northwestern Elementary. She said the kids love anything with beef.
"A fan favorite is beefaroni. Beefy Nacho Day is like an all-time favorite across the district," she said. The district also serves homemade meatloaf and spaghetti with meatballs.
Coats tapped into two federal programs to purchase beef this year. The first provides discount food to schools. The second was a farm-to-school grant, started in 2022 under the Biden administration, that Coats used to buy local, grass-fed beef.
The grass-fed beef is much leaner, she said, and the meals they make with it are healthier and taste better, too.
“We’d rather have it local, of course, because we know exactly where it’s coming from and how it’s being processed,” Coats said.
That beef comes from Muse 3 Farm in Greensburg, a small family-owned farm less than an hour away.
On a windy day, dozens of cows are grazing on ryegrass. One of the farm’s owners, Chris Muse, calls them with a long whoo-eee. The animals are shy at first, but after a few minutes, they lumber over and moo.
Muse founded the farm with his three brothers after they had left the family land and pursued other careers. Their father was a farmer, too.
When he returned home, Muse made it a goal to feed local kids.
“Kids gonna eat every day at those schools, right? And you would think, ‘Where is most of their food coming from? Is it coming locally?” You know, in reality, it’s no,” Muse said.
In the most recent farm-to-school census in 2023, only about half of Louisiana’s school food authorities reported serving local food, compared to 63% across the country.
The problem is cost. Muse’s premium grass-fed beef sells for $10 a pound, while the discounted beef bought by schools in Zachary is $4 a pound.
The grant program started a few years ago to give schools federal funding that they could only spend on local food.
Muse remembers thinking, “This is what I have been waiting on.”
Suddenly, schools had thousands of dollars to spend and wanted to buy his beef. “They were calling me now, saying, ‘OK, we’re ready. What can you do? What can you do?’”
Muse said Coats was the first person to call. Demand was so high that he had to turn some schools away. He got other farms involved in the program, and they made plans to produce the fruits and vegetables schools wanted, investing in hydroponics to grow some year-round.
But then the Trump administration took office, and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, started making cuts, including the farm-to-school program, known as Local Food for Schools.
By early December, Louisiana schools had spent about $3.4 million through the program for this school year and had about $11.8 million left to spend. When the Department of Agriculture canceled the program in March, any unspent money disappeared, along with millions more in future funding.
The USDA also eliminated a similar program for food banks and a separate grant focused on teaching kids about local foods through taste tests, school gardens and other efforts.
A USDA spokesperson told Politico in March that the programs “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.” USDA did not respond to WWNO’s and WRKF’s request for comment.
Coats, with Zachary schools, said she can’t afford to buy local beef without federal money. Muse, the farmer, said he’s heard the same from all his schools.
Coats said she’s nervous the federal government could cut other programs that help schools purchase food.
“That’s worrisome because we do well as a district, but there are some that are struggling,” she said.
When schools serve lower-quality food, it’s not always their fault, Coats said, “They just don’t have the money.”
Supporting local food systems
Marlene Schwartz researches food policy at the University of Connecticut. She said it's unfair to expect schools to get the best price and have the highest quality.
"Unfortunately, in our food system in the United States, that's just not the way it works," Schwartz said.
She said that if people want schools to purchase food directly from farms, then schools need more government support. Some states have funded their own programs, but it takes long-term investment.
"It's not like the farmer can get an order and produce that food tomorrow," Schwartz said. "They need to have time to plan 'cause they have to grow the food."
Marguerite Green with the Louisiana Food Policy Action Council said as state lawmakers respond to the Trump administration's call to "Make America Healthy Again," supporting local agriculture is the answer.
"It's pretty obvious that the quickest and easiest way to get fresh, whole foods to people is to support local procurement," Green said.
Lawmakers in Louisiana appear to agree with Green. Patrick McMath, a Republican from Covington who authored a bill that bans some dyes and additives from school lunches, is also urging Congress to restore farm-to-school funding.
The state's agriculture commissioner, Mike Strain, said last week that he's in touch with members of Louisiana's congressional delegation and is asking them to make sure money for the program ends up in the federal budget.
Chris Muse, the farmer in Greensburg, says he hopes the Trump administration will realize they've made a mistake.
"There's nothing bad you can say about that program," he said, adding that it’s inspired him to bring plants and animals to the schools to teach kids about where food comes from and how they can make healthy choices.
"I'm optimistic that once things settle down and we reorganize and restructure things, I feel that program is one of the programs that's going to come back," Muse said.
