The Impact of Seven Cents

In 2009, as the Oregon Legislature debated whether to allocate state funding to increase schools’ purchasing power for foods grown, processed and manufactured in Oregon, the question at hand was whether an additional investment of just pennies per meal could provide significant economic benefit to the state. During the 2008-2009 school year, we set out to answer the question: What if schools had an additional $.07 per meal to spend on buying local foods for the lunch line? During this research, we placed particular emphasis on evaluating the economic effects of increased procurement of local foods.