Mountain Avenue Elementary School was the site of a California Farm to School pilot program two days last week and two days the week before that brought locally grown fruits and vegetables to the school cafeteria's salad bar. Juicy tomatoes, crisp cucumbers and cauliflower, and a small mountain of carrots were some of the small-farm fresh options that filled the salad bar. Signs showing a picture of the produce with the farm's name were posted for curious eaters to discover where their food had come from.

Farm to School is a program that links local farmers with schools by bringing fresh produce to cafeterias. It operates out of Occidental College with the help of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute. There are currently 40 Farm to School programs in California, serving 516 schools.

The purpose of piloting the program at Mountain Avenue was to test the logistics and identify barriers to the concept, according to Sharon Cech of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute.

Currently, Mountain Avenue and other district schools get their fruits and veggies from a produce distributor who primarily uses large farms. The produce is not frozen, but is often brought from farms that are 200 miles away, according to Agnes Lally, Director of Food Services for the Glendale Unified School District.

For the pilot program, produce was brought in from Carlsbad, Fillmore, Tehachapi and Goleta.

"Ideally we want to change school food," said Sharon Cech of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. "We want to get the local food system merged with the school food system."

But linking local food and mouths has its challenges, such as increased cost and labor.

"One of the things that makes the cost so difficult is that you're not just focusing on large farms. … You're trying to support small and midsize farmers who use sustainable growing practices, " said Cech. "It's really expensive to try to coordinate with many very little operations that don't have a lot of infrastructure and are running on these very small business models. So to try to plug that into a very large distribution system is very tricky."

The increased labor is not something that Mountain Avenue would be able to handle at this time. "With Farm to School, you buy every produce as a whole," said Lally. "When it comes to the school site, you have to wash it, dry it, slice it. … It's very labor-intense. We're currently chopping some romaine and green leaf lettuce and some carrots, but not every single produce."

At Mountain Avenue, there is currently one employee who serves breakfast and lunch and works six and a half hours per day.

"That is a very limited time for her to prep, warm things up, serve it and present our food in an edible fashion," said Lally.

For the pilot program, the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute purchased the food and helped with the chopping.

"[The UEPI] is tracking the cost and developing a business plan that hopefully can be applied to any school district that's interested to show the scale at which it would be economically feasible," said Cech.

Despite the challenges, there are Farm to School programs that are working all over the nation, including in Santa Monica and Riverside. The Riverside School District has used its industrial-sized kitchen to start a catering business for non-school events. The revenue generated is used to off-set the higher costs of local fruits and vegetables, according to Cech. "Different strategies work in different regions," said Cech.

If Farm to School were to take off in this district, its influence would extend beyond the cafeteria. "Right now we're just looking at how much education we can provide during the lunch period," said Cech, noting the signs that show a photo of the produce and the name of the farm it came from. "But ideally this would be coupled with classroom education; how food is grown, where food comes from …  and giving kids an idea of the bigger picture."

According to Geri Lorenzana RD, Nutrition Consultant for the Glendale Unified School District, providing fruits, vegetables and nutrition education will have positive health benefits.

"Research shows that increased consumption of fruits and vegetables [and] increased physical activity can help decrease obesity. And if we can help decrease obesity, that reduces the risk of diabetes, certain types of cardiovascular disease and certain types of cancer. That's huge," said Lorenzana. "The younger we can get them to change behavior, to model behavior, to empower them with evidence-based research information, they can make healthy choices to have a healthy lifestyle. And we all benefit from that."

"We're very excited about this program," said Lally. "We're looking to Occidental to see what the outcome is and what is required for us to ensure that we can continue this program."