Calling all farmers, growers, and producers seeking to learn more about how to sell your products to school cafeterias. Join us on July 21st to gain insight on networking with school cafeterias, how to market to schools, production & distribution for school cafeterias, safe handling practices, and more. The training will be held in the VIP room in the Golden Moaon Casino in Choctaw, MS. The training will start at 10am and conclude by 2pm. Lunch will be provided.

Please register for the workshop in advance, there is no fee for registration. Sign up today here: https://forms.gle/cp9CDLV11TEquC8Y8

If you have any questions regarding the event, please contact sydney@mississippifarmtoschool.org. We hope to see you there! 

Join us on March 9, 2023 to gather for the annual Mississippi Farm to Cafeteria Conference. We are thrilled to convene in person this year, and look forward to seeing you there. The conference will bring farm to school champions and practitioners from throughout the region to learn and grow the farm to school movement.

The one-day event will include engaging and thought provoking sessions and workshops, networking sessions, and the opportunity to share the ways in which you are advancing farm to school. You can expect a delicious lunch prepared by a chef with locally sourced ingredients.

The conference will be held at the Mississippi E-Center in Jackson Mississippi from 9am-5pm. Early-bird Registration opens February 2nd at a discounted rate of $35 per person. General Registration opens February 16th at the cost of $50 per person. Vendor tables will be available for $100 per table. Register here!

We will be offering scholarships to students and other eligible attendees. If you are interested in applying for a scholarship, please email Sydney@mississippifarmtoschool.org before registering.

We are thrilled to announce our Keynote Speaker, Erika Allen and Malcolm Evans of Urban Growers Collective. Erika Allen (she/her) is the Co-Founder & CEO – Operations for Urban Growers Collective and the President of Green ERA Educational NFP and Co-Owner of Green Era Sustainability Partners. She is passionate about social justice and working with multicultural groups in the elimination of racism, related oppressions, and the root causes of poverty by integrating creative and therapeutic techniques alongside food security and community development.

Thank you to our generous sponsors of the 2023 Mississippi Farm to Cafeteria Conference:

Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

Pearl River Graphics Printing

We are still accepting sponsorships for this event. If your business is interested in donating a sponsorship to offset the costs of the conference, please visit this link.

Join us to celebrate the grand opening of the community garden at the Salvation Army Kroc Center in Biloxi! Members and non-members of the Kroc Center are encouraged to attend. The event will cater to K-12 students, families, and community members interested in learning more about growing your own food and becoming involved with a community garden.

The event will feature a garden tour accompanied by learning activities, introduction to gardening, and a cooking demo for lunch.

The event will be donation-based. We ask those of you who can to pay $10 per child/person. Your donation of any amount is certainly appreciated and will go towards future funding for this garden and other community & school gardens and events across the state. Registration opens on June 16th and is required to attend. Find the link to register, here.

Thank you for your interest in the 2021 Virtual Mississippi Farm to Cafeteria Conference! The annual conference brings farm to school practitioners and future practitioners together from across the state and region to share, learn, and help grow the farm to school movement. Food service directors, farmers, school administration, teachers, students and community advocates are encouraged to attend. Registration opens at 9AM on Tuesday January 11th, here.

In lieu of a registration fee this year, we encourage those who can to donate whatever you can to offset the cost of the event. Please see the link to donate to our fiscal sponsor, Earth Island Institute, below the link to register on the zoom registration page.

We are so thrilled to announce our keynote speaker for this year’s conference, Jessica Harris. Jessica B. Harris, considered by many to be one of the ranking authorities on the food of the African Diaspora, is the author, editor, or translator of eighteen books including twelve cookbooks documenting the foodways of the African Diaspora. Harris consults internationally and conceptualized the award-winning cafeteria of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. She is currently leading the Culinary Institute of America’s new African Diaspora Foodways initiative. In 2021, High on the Hog, based on Harris’s book of the same name, premiered on Netflix. Dr. Harris is also lead curator for the exhibit African/American: Making the Nation’s Table to be presented by New York’s Museum of Food and Drink in 2022.

Dr Harris holds numerous awards and accolades including an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Johnson & Wales University. In 2019, her food-related works were inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame and she is the 2020 James Beard Lifetime Achievement awardee. Dr. Harris taught at Queens College/CUNY, New York , for five decades and is currently professor emerita at that institution.

While we will miss the opportunity to gather in person this year, we are so excited to deliver a flexible and diverse array of sessions that we suspect you will find interesting. We look forward to seeing you, virtually, February 8th. Register here!