IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfpoli/v63y2016icp23-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

National policy and state dynamics: A state-level analysis of the factors influencing the prevalence of farm to school programs in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Lyson, Helena C.

Abstract

Skyrocketing childhood obesity rates have fueled rising concern about the health of school-aged children around the world. Efforts to reduce childhood obesity have increasingly targeted improvements to school meal programs. In particular, in the United States, the landmark 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) marked the first substantial changes to federal school food policy in recent years to enhance the quality of school meals. Despite these federal policy changes including mandated nutritional improvements and increased federal funding for farm to school programs that can help schools meet the new nutritional standards, there is still significant variation in the prevalence of farm to school programs across the United States. Theories of the policy process suggest that federal policies can vary by state in their implementation and impact, with state-level factors influencing this variation. This paper quantitatively explores the effect of both federal legislation through vertical diffusion and state-level internal determinants on farm to school rates across the country. My findings reveal that state affluence and the average farm to school rate of a state’s regional peers emerge as the most significant, positive predictors of state-level farm to school rates. This research sheds light on the current nature of school food programs in the United States that provide critical nutrition to millions of school children each day, and suggests a need for additional research exploring the linkages between federal policy, state-level factors, and local implementation of school food programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Lyson, Helena C., 2016. "National policy and state dynamics: A state-level analysis of the factors influencing the prevalence of farm to school programs in the United States," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 23-35.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:63:y:2016:i:c:p:23-35
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2016.06.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919216301087
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.foodpol.2016.06.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gwozdz, W. & Reisch, L. & Eiben, G. & Hunsberger, M. & Konstabel, K. & Kovacs, E. & Luszczki, E. & Mazur, A. & Mendl, E. & Saamel, M. & Wolters, M., 2020. "The effect of smileys as motivational incentives on children’s fruit and vegetable choice, consumption and waste: A field experiment in schools in five European countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    2. repec:ags:aaea22:335700 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Bonanno, Alessandro & Mendis, Sachintha S., 2021. "Too cool for farm to school? Analyzing the determinants of farm to school programming continuation," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    4. Yu, Jisang & Sumner, Daniel A. & Lee, Hyunok, 2021. "Premium rates and selection in specialty crop insurance markets: Evidence from the catastrophic coverage participation," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    5. O'Hara, Jeffrey K. & Benson, Matthew, 2017. "Local Food Production and Farm to School Expenditures," 2017 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2017, Mobile, Alabama 252669, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    6. Lisa Jordan Powell & Hannah Wittman, 2018. "Farm to school in British Columbia: mobilizing food literacy for food sovereignty," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(1), pages 193-206, March.
    7. Kashyap, Pratyoosh & Jablonski, Becca B.R. & Bauman, Allison, 2022. "Exploring the Relationship between Stocks of Community Wealth and the Intensity of Farm to School Program Activities," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322167, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Kashyap, Pratyoosh & Jablonski, Becca B.R. & Bauman, Allison, 2024. "Exploring the relationships among stocks of community wealth, state farm to school policies, and the intensity of farm to school activities," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:63:y:2016:i:c:p:23-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.