Ron Wyden says school food in Oregon comes from 'almost anywhere but Oregon': PolitiFact Oregon | OregonLive.com

Ron Wyden says school food in Oregon comes from 'almost anywhere but Oregon': PolitiFact Oregon | OregonLive.com:

Ron Wyden says school food in Oregon comes from 'almost anywhere but Oregon': PolitiFact Oregon

by Charles Pope, The Oregonian

View full sizeArkasha Stevenson/The Oregonian/2010No, thank you California; we'll take our own strawberries for school lunches. Never mind, Minnesota and Michigan; we have excellent cheese in Oregon. 

When the Senate was debating the farm bill recently, Sen. Ron Wydenhighlighted the haphazard nature of the way food is purchased and provided to the school lunch program.

His point was simple: A lot of the food that ends up in school kitchens comes from points far away from the schools serving it. Using local sources of food might be cheaper, he argued, and it certainly would be more nutritious.

Wyden offered an amendment that would establish pilot programs at five locations nationwide to see if using local food could be both cheaper and better.

After it passed, the Oregon Democrat drove home the point in a news release: "Oregon schools receive millions of dollars per year in federal school lunch assistance and yet they are required t