Leader in Farm to School: Spotlight on Miguel Villarreal, National Farm to School Network (in English)

00:00:07 Michelle

Welcome to the farm to school podcast where you will hear stories of how youth thrive and farmers prosper when we learn how to grow, cook and eat delicious, nutritious local foods and schools across the country…

00:00:19 Rick

And the world. Hello, everybody. We're your hosts, I'm Rick Sherman

00:00:22 Michelle

And I'm Michelle Markesteyn. And today we are excited to welcome a true farm to school champion. Hello, Miguel!

00:00:30 Miguel Villareal

Hello.

00:00:34 Michelle

Miguel, will you please introduce yourself and tell us what your official title is?

00:00:39 Miguel Villareal

Yes, yes. So my name is Miguel. We are real and my official current title is Interim Co executive director for the National Farm to School network, where I've been at now for the last two years.

00:00:54 Michelle

And you have had an incredible journey getting to the place you are now. Would you be willing to share a little of your story with us?

00:01:02 Miguel Villareal

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for asking Michelle. And I before I we go too far: one, I'm super excited about being here with both of you and so glad that you're doing this podcast is something that's definitely needed. And in order to get her the messages out from all these great people out there doing this great work, as you said in your introduction and from the farm to school movement. So. So my journey actually began as at a very young age I was... I was born into farm… It wasn't called Farm to school, but it was definitely in the in the farming world my parents were migrant farm workers. I was actually born in Idaho. We lived in Texas, so my parents for two generations had been, you know, migrating from Texas to Idaho and to California and to, you know, North Dakota, Minnesota and all, all these places and so, actually, for the 1st 17 years of my life spent a lot of time in in the fields and actually working in the fields and getting to meet farmers and so forth at the age of 12 when most kids start working alongside their families. And so I think those.. really, impressions of that.. I had it with them. Well, and as hard as we were working as hard as all farm workers work, it was also some good experiences for me in terms of spending time with my family, my extended family and also getting to meet these incredible farmers that even at a very young age. I recall that symbiotic relationship that I didn't know existed. I remember recognizing that at a very young age and for me it I also because I was doing that kind of work, knew that that's not the work I wanted to do my entire life. It was extremely difficult. And so I had the good fortune to early on, and I don't know where these seeds were planted, but they were rented along the way in that is the love for nutrition and food and how food interacts with their body. So from a very young age I was interested in herbs and healthy foods and I was a kid that stopped drinking sodas at like the age of 12 and started introducing a lot to my own family and I, and I also knew at a young age that I wanted to study nutrition. I didn't know was called nutrition until years later, and I and I did at the age of 17 did enroll in a university and earned a degree in food and nutrition. And then we'll talk about the next phase?

00:04:08 Michelle

Yeah. What was that next phase?

00:04:10 Miguel Villareal

Yeah. So the next phase was Michelle, you know, I thought I'm gonna take all this knowledge, all this passion, and I really I wanna work with athletes because I was. I've always been interested in as an athlete as well, even though it wasn't the greatest athletes. But I loved athletics and I wanted to help athletes do better in their profession, if you will. And as it turned out… I should tell you real quick. As it turned out that when I was in college, I also worked in a in a hospital and as a as a dietetic. And I knew Michelle and Rick at that time that I did not want to be a dietician, that at that point. You know, they dieticians had a calling for people that were in the hospital that were sick and for me, I'm thinking at the at a very young age at the age of 21, 20... I don't know what job I'm gonna have, but it's something to keep people out of this these hospitals. As it turned out, my professor in college says, hey, Miguel, they're looking for a nutritionist with the Dallas Independent School District. You should apply. And I did apply. I had no idea that there was even a career in school food services. But I spent eight years in the Dallas Independent School District as one of their coordinators, administrators and so forth, and it was at that time that really those my roots were really starting to develop in terms of school food services and the impact that we could have on children's lives, the impact that we could have on families’ lives. The impact we could have on our teachers lives and the impact and honesty on community in general through this, through a school food service program, by simply educating everybody in the in the school food system and outside of it, and make and ensuring that educate about healthy foods, educate about where foods come from and educating around the work that we were doing to ensure that that the foods that we were buying that we were purchasing were, you know, helping children be their best. Well, they were in school, so it was at that time in in Dallas that I started forming those routes and decided that this is going to be my career and no longer was I thinking about athletes. I was thinking about everybody and whether it be young, I figured these young kids are gonna grow up to be athletes. Young kids are gonna grow up to be our future leaders, whether they business and the business world and the arts world and the science world, so forth. And they need to, we need to make sure that they've got we that they're ready to enter to this next phase of their life, and by readiness that they are at their healthiest. And so I just took all that passion that I had had from a very young age and started pouring it into my job and as a school food service director I worked in Dallas, you know, then I worked in this another district there in Texas, Victoria, Small for three years and then I went. I went to work as a school district in in northern Texas called Plano. And then I left Texas and moved out to California and but that, and we'll talk little bit about that as well.

00:07:48 Rick

Miguel, it's funny listening to you like how alike our paths. My, my personal journey, and yours. It almost seems the same. I was a sports psych minor in college, working with athletes, and a college athlete and A food service director for 20 years too. So we're such. We're cut from the same cloth, I think.

00:08:09 Miguel Villareal

I think we are, we are, we are definitely brothers in spirit. I had no idea. Yeah, great. I'm glad to hear that. We, you and I have need to spend some time together. Really. Really. Serious. Serious stories very much.

00:08:14 Rick

Yeah, right on.

00:08:23 Michelle

That's why we do this podcast so we can meet people.

00:08:29 Miguel Villareal

Exactly.

00:08:29 Michelle

And so kind of bring us to California too, because that's where I started interacting with you and getting to see some of the extraordinary things you were doing there.

00:08:34

Yeah.

00:08:40 Miguel Villareal

Yeah, thank you, Michelle. I mean, when I, I so I you know was trying to implement all these healthy food initiatives in in Texas and back in the 90s.

00:08:52 Miguel Villareal

And with summers opposition back then, and I was that position, it wasn't about the health of students. It was about the, you know, the financial bottom line for the, which is important, definitely for school food services, but not at the expense of Children's Health, was in my last school district that I was in. At the time at that time in the 90s, there were lots of bottling companies signing contracts with school districts and selling sodas in schools and vending machines and so forth. And it was the that for me, that was the nail, if you will, that that feel that for me in terms of like “I can't do this anymore,” my business manager said. Hey, Miguel, we just signed a contract, the vending company, and I need you to oversee that, that whole, you know, the sales and the placement of vending machines and so forth, and I thought, no, that's not gonna be me. I'm sorry. I am outta here. I mean, this is not going in the direction I want. So anyway, I ended up stepping away and find myself out here in California. I also have a masters in business administration. So I'll work for a small school district as a business manager, but at the time there wasn't any opportunities and the district where I got hired was looking for a school, food service director and even though I reluctantly took the job, I looked at and. So Michelle, this is my epiphany at the time, it was in a in, in Marin County, which is a county surrounded by over 60 at the time certified organic farms. And I remember looking at the menus the first day and talking to my team and I said OK, so where I had been in the area now for six months in California and knew about all these farms in the area, I said. So what? What farms are we buying our food from? Because I just thought that that's what Californians did. And they said “we don't buy any food from any local farms. We get it from our one of our distributors” and I said So what about what about these farms in the area? They said no we don't, it's too expensive. It's just one excuse after the other. That's why they weren't doing it. And I said, well, can I? All right. So let me see the rest of your menu and the rest of the menu, Michelle and Rick, was the exact venues I we had just left from Texas, which were included a lot, a lot of highly processed foods and even sodas being sold in vending machines. So I went directly to my supervisor that same day, so my supervisor person that hired me. I said “look, this is why I left Texas” and I told the story that I just told you and I said I'd be happy to remain in this position in this role, but I and I could, but we need to change. We need to change what's being served and how we're approaching our school futures program. It happened to be an opportune situation, and that the person that had hired me also had the same mindset and said to me the only thing the only thing he said to me at the time. This is Miguel, I'm going to support you and your initiatives that I know you know you're going to need some help along the way she said, I'll only ask one thing, to keep us in the black. Don't let us go into the into the red. Well, you know, I had enough business sense to know that I could do that, but the next 20 years, Michelle, it was we I spent in implementing and initiating and bringing farm to school programs, we didn't, it wasn't called farm to School, you've done a recent podcast with the Anupama Joshi, I didn't even know Anupama Joshi in those days.. in 2002, but when I learned about the national Farm to school network, that's when I learned about these other food service directors around the country that were at the time, the initial phases of farm to school. If they I had no idea, I thought I thought I was again like I was in Texas. I thought I was a one of the one of the few people that were working these initiatives. I learned that there were others and that networking opportunity with other organizations, as you well know, just, you know, fed, if you will, our program with positive reinforcement and you know allow us to network and apply best practices with other school districts that we're doing the same here in California and around the country.

00:13:34 Michelle

Well, and to that talking of the next chapter after two decades in that space. And you know, I know you were learning from folks. But you know, everyone running around the country was also inspired by and learning from what you were doing at the district level. And now you find yourself as Co executive director of National Farm to school network. Tell us what it's like at the helm of a national movement.

00:14:02 Miguel Villareal

Yeah, thank you. I mean, I I'm loving this work because it I I've correlated it all along to the same work that I did at the school, Food Service director and so what I did differently from the 1st 20 years in the school, Food Service director in Texas versus what I did out here in California was I started expanding my reach in the community. So you know, I just simply said, who's missing from my farm to school table? Who's at the table at the moment? And who's missing from the table? And so, for example, teachers and parents and community leaders and health allied organizations and universities. And you know, and farmers and hopefully I said, students and on and on and on this this collaboration is bringing together forces through the school Food Service program, working with a lot of different partners. We it was the IT was the way that we were able to improve the programs in our community and really, bringing everybody to the table and making sure that we all and we all understood the message and what does farm to school represent? And so in this role as a Co executive director for the National Farm to School Network, I see. I see the very same role in that the network, the national Farm to School network is a convener, if you will, of partners that we have around the country. And so we're able to bring people, other partners together, partner organizations that represent many other individuals in their communities. And again, I'm making sure that we have this shared vision, this shared message that we this shared way of communicating farm to school, to everyone. And what I've learned is that these messages have to be repeated over and over and over. Rick and I were having a conversation earlier, saying, you know, since when they people say, well, tell me about farm to school. I hadn't even heard what Farm to school is. And so even people that are in the know…

00:16:19 Rick

Right.

00:16:22 Miguel Villareal

..that have been involved, don't understand the complete picture of what farm to school is. The opportunity that you have to build community and really change the community just like we did in in the Community that I worked in for all those years to get to a point where everybody understands it. This is the first time, Rick, and in in my career as a school Food service director that I had heard teachers say to me we are seeing a difference in the classroom because of the foods that these children are eating. We are seeing a difference because, you know, in terms of the they, they knew that the amount of highly processed food that we have removed from our program, in fact, we started tracking data on the highly processed food and the introduction of healthy foods and our teachers, we're seeing the effects our principals. We're seeing the effects; the parents were seeing the impact again. Nurses and I mean when you get it was all qualitative data, but it was data that was evident and for someone like me that's passing about nutrition and seeing to hear that that was music to my ears. But it took a good 30 years before I heard somebody say that back to me because we weren't providing the right fuel for these students.

00:17:45 Rick

Well, thank you for that. That's the message, isn't it? That's our goal. It's one of the reasons why we started this podcast is to get that word out there. So thanks for sharing.

00:17:54 Michelle

And talking about shared messages, what are some examples of those shared messages and things I've heard relate to values aligned school meals or absolutely, yeah.

00:18:08 Miguel Villareal

Yeah, absolutely. So you then you hit the target on the, on the head, it's like, you know.. For about 3 decades as a school food service director, we were promoting and engaging in with legislators both at the national level and at the state level to pass legislation, if you will, that would bring universal meals to schools, what that means? All students would have access to a meal for many reasons that was so important. Many, many reasons in terms of and making sure that children were eight being fed, but also making sure that any social stigmas that all children are treated equally. I mean, for some of us that had that.. and I was one of those kids that had that experience, that you know you're you are treated differently by your peers in terms of ohh so you you're on the free lunch program you know so you must come from a poor family or so on and so forth. But it means like food shouldn't be something that we stigmatized. No, not at all. I mean it's something that it's a social stigma. So when so when we start passing those laws and we have eight states that have passed, California being one of them, to your point, Michelle, we have arrived, if you will, at the starting line, great. We passed universal meals, great. So what's the next iteration? The next iteration is called values aligned procurement. And that means that the school food service programs are ensuring that the food that now that all children are eating. So now we're we're trying to be socially responsible as well for everybody's nourishment and making sure that all children are being served the best possible within the budget, that school futures programs are giving so values aligned procurement. So if Children's Health is one thing, but it's also supporting local economies, so you're supporting farmers, you're supporting the employees that work in the school Food service program, you're giving them the resources to be able to do the jobs that they do best. Also, you're also thinking and looking at the environmental impact. So how far is he traveling? Could I potentially remove some things from my menu that were potentially harmless to the environment? You're also thinking about animal welfare and for example. There’s lots to talk about regenerative farming practices. For me and for this organization, the National Farm to School network is make making sure that we are looking at racial equity across all scopes in in the community, you know. And Michelle, just tell you when I started 20 years ago I wasn't using even equity. I didn't. It's like. As a constant, it was like we need to do this because it's the right thing to do, but now there's common language. You know, it's the educators use equity for making sure that children are educated, all educated and but no, no one I recall had been using the word. Food equity. Or even, you know, nourishment as a as a way of making addressing equity. So it's those common, the common language is now this values aligned procurement practices that we're trying to get, you know, food service programs and communities, all communities thinking along those lines and speaking the same language and understanding what the meaning behind that is, you know, having a common language.

00:22:17 Michelle

To that point, it helps people literally get on the same page and collaborate, coordinate, catalyze together, and I'm sure people are really inspired by things you're saying are going to want to get involved. What are some things people can do?

00:22:32 Miguel Villareal

Yeah. Thank you. Perfect segment to that. So, one of the things that I've been saying all along with the national Farm to school network, just like with again using my lived experience as a school food service director, is that an effort in in order to get to this next level is that we need, we need people at that table, right? So, the national primary school network.. One of the things that we say is bringing parts, or so you can go to our website at farmtoschool.org and become a partner, sign up for organizations or for school districts, or for really anyone that has the same vision that wants to accomplish these things, so we have what we say we need part of this why? So we can continue to expand the work and we can we the national, the school network can continue to connect these organizations to each other and to resources and education and so on. And then on top of that, Michelle, the other thing is, is membership now these things that I'm talking about are at no cost to the National Fund, the school network, but they provide, we provide it with the newsletter. We provide information about, you know, everything that's going on around the nation in terms of farm to school. But membership is important as in any social activism that you're trying to push along that you need voices at the table and the more voices that you have this awareness about what's happening, you know, we can we can move this needle if you will or the bar. We can raise the bar, continue to raise the bar by having, you know, more people engage. When I say more people not only school food services, employees and staff. The farmers, but also our parents and our teachers and our health-allied organizations that… and students and just community at large because it's this awareness building and the National Farm to School network has been serving that role. We have 20,000 members at the moment. And then the National farm to school organization, I'd like to see that double, triple, even quadruple with over this next year and even into the future?

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00:24:46 Michelle

Wow.

00:24:55 Rick

Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for that, Miguel. I'm going to leave links to what you said. The national farm to school network, other things that you've dropped in the show notes. Also put a link in there about the previous episode that we mentioned about Anupama Joshi. If people want to listen to more on the roots of the national farm, to school network and how it was created, kind of an inter interesting deep dive on that. But I would like just to thank you so much for being on the show today.

00:25:27 Miguel Villareal

Thank you to both of you and I you know I wish you all the success.

00:25:31 Michelle

Thank you, Miguel, and thank you for sharing your story with us. And we like to thank you all for listening. So today, Farm to School was written, directed and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Markison and was made possible by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

00:25:45 Rick

The content and ideas on the farm to school podcast does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University, Oregon Department of Education, and the United States Department of Agriculture, or the National Farm to School network, the USDA, Oregon Department of Education and Oregon State University are equal opportunity providers and employers.

00:26:07 Michelle

Do you want to learn more about Farm to school? Who doesn't want to learn more about Farm to school? Check out our other episode, show notes and contact information by searching Up “Farm to school podcasts OSU.”

00:26:18 Rick

We would love to hear from you. Stop by that website Michelle just mentioned to say hello and please give us an idea for a future podcast.

00:26:26 Michelle

Thanks again Miguel. This time with you as a gift.

00:26:30 Miguel Villareal

Thank you.