partner spotlight & events, regional food systems partnership, school nutrition, state policy, value chain coordination
Where Ideas Take Root: 2025 Farm to Cafeteria Conference Reflections
January 20, 2026
Recap Blog by Robbi Mixon, AFPC Executive Director
Last month, I had the opportunity to travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico and represent the 2025 Farm to Cafeteria Conference, an energizing national gathering of school nutrition leaders, farmers, educators, policymakers, and advocates all working toward the same goal: getting more fresh, local food onto kids’ trays while strengthening the communities that grow it. Over the course of the conference, conversations kept circling back to a central message, that “farm to school” isn’t just a program, it’s a relationship between students and their food, between schools and local producers, and between health, culture, and place.
A major driver of that connection is the event’s host, the National Farm to School Network. By bringing together partners across regions and roles, the Network, similar to the Alaska Food Systems Network, helps turn good ideas into real, practical change and action. This can range from navigating procurement and seasonality, supporting producers as they scale for institutional buyers, building scratch-cooking skills in cafeterias, developing supportive policies and resources, or creating meaningful food education that students engage in. The Network’s collaborative approach reflects what makes this work so powerful: no single school, farm, or organization has to figure it out alone; we can do more collectively.
The conference program offered a rich three-day experience, complete with a field-trip day, aimed at connecting attendees with practical tools and community voices across the farm-to-institution movement. Plenaries, breakout sessions, exhibitors, posters/networking, a networking reception, and intensive workshops all cultivated skills building, information, and conversations. Field trips offered a glimpse into New Mexico’s rich culinary and agricultural traditions,like a tour and visit to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (I’m not ashamed to say I ate at the onsite restaurant three times) nuts-and-bolts tours of food facilities, including a tour of Albuquerque Public Schools’ Central Kitchen, and visiting Cooking with Kids garden-to-classroom programming in Northern New Mexico.
I usually find the most meaningful aspects of a conference are the connections we make and the networks we grow. This event was no different, but on a scale I don’t regularly get to experience. With almost 1,000 attendees from all over the nation, there was a conversation and idea sharing around every corner. Some of the best moments were finally meeting people I’ve only known as little squares on a screen, Zoom faces coming to life in hallway conversations, over coffee, and between sessions. Those in-person connections made it easier to talk honestly about what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s possible. I reconnected with our Islands & Remote Areas project partners from Hawai’i, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands, renewing our sense of family and commitment to working together to support non-contiguous states and territories, and talked all things farmers markets with the Agriculture Institute of Marin. I caught up with the Intertribal Agricluture Council and connected with staff and members from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). I visited with current value chain coordination project partners, Kitchen Sync Strategies, and had the amazing opportunity to finally meet some of the Petersburg, AK School Nutrition Staff, who I have only seen in our AFPC School Nutrition Working Group meetings, and I also met Nourish Colorado, fellow NSAC members whom we are very inspired by.
A very special thank you goes out to Tomas Delgado for introducing us to the network and to the entire Farm to School Network: so much gratitude for the incredible lift of producing this event, and for providing resources to so many attendees to make travel possible. I left with new relationships, renewed momentum, and a notebook full of adaptable solutions, ideas that can be shaped to fit Alaska’s unique harvest seasons, logistics, and communities, building stronger, more resilient school food systems, one cafeteria, one classroom, and one community at a time.
Post script. After the Farm to School Conference in Albuquerque, I got the opportunity to travel to Taos and visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum on the way to Santa Fe (with some of our former RFBC partners from Hawai’i and US Virgin Islands). There was an incredible exhibit that featured 12 Indigenous artists from nearby pueblos, offering artwork and commentary on O’Keeffe’s complicated, often colonial views of the southwest.
