Texas Farm to School Round Up

Presented in conjunction with Texas Department of Agriculture and Sustainable Food Center 

January 12, 2017   9am-4:30pm

Hampton Inn & Suites - Mesquite

1700 Rodeo Dr., Mesquite, TX 75149

The Texas Farm to School Round Up will be held at the 2017 TOFGA Conference.  It combines an intensive Pre-conference Workshop along with several sessions focused on specific components of Farm to School during the conference.

Who should attend:
  • small and mid-scale farmers, 
  • extension agents, 
  • farm advocates, 
  • and anyone ready to move forward with Farm to School efforts in Texas, regardless of your starting point     


Travel Stipends! Thanks to Sustainable Food Center in Austin, we have 18 travel stipends of $150 available to producers interested in the Farm to School Workshop. The stipend comes as a discount for the pre-conference workshop and the TOFGA conference. Interested producers should follow the link below and complete the application. Once approved, attendees will receive a discount code to register for the pre-conference workshop and the full conference together. Additional stipend information and an application can be found here:  http://tiny.cc/FarmtoSchool.    


What is the Round Up?

The Farm to School Round Up is an all-day, interactive workshop aimed to help farmers with tools and information for selling their local products to school districts. Below is the planned agenda.

9:00 - Registration

9:30-9:45 - Welcome and Introductions

9:45-10:30 - Farm to School Basics

  • ·       Alyssa Herold, Texas Department of Agriculture
  • ·       Emilee Feldhausen, Texas Department of Agriculture
  • ·       Rachel Spencer, USDA Farm to School Program

10:40-12:15 – Business Planning for Farm to School Success

  • ·       Susie Marshall – TOFGA and GROW North Texas
  • ·       Andrew Smiley – Sustainable Food Center
  • ·       Justin Tulley – Idea Public Schools
  • ·       Tim Traister – Capital Farm Credit 

12:30-1:30 – Lunch & Learn – Farmer & Distributor Perspectives

1:45-4:30 – Dig In!

  • ·      Break-out session discussions with presenters and participants, including these topics:
  • -       Farm Financing
  • -       Task Management for Farm Efficiency
  • -       Introduction to Growing Farm Profits and Veggie Compass

4:30-4:45 – Closing & Next Steps

4:45 -              Networking


The Farm to School track of the TOFGA conference will take the learning a step further, offering conference attendees the opportunity to gain more in-depth knowledge about related topics during focused sessions. The workshops will be noted in the conference program with the round up logo.


Information on registration: 

Register for both Farm to School Round Up and TOFGA conference

  • The pre-conference workshop will be a selection to add onto your conference registration. 
  • Registration for the Farm to School Preconference is $25 (coffee, lunch, snacks and training materials packet are included).
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