2023 Farm to School Census

Description of the experiment setting: location, influential climatic conditions, controlled conditions (e.g. temperature, light cycle)

In Fall of 2023 the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) conducted the fourth Farm to School Census. The 2023 Census was sent via email to 18,833 school food authorities (SFAs) including all public, private, and charter SFAs, as well as residential care institutions, participating in the National School Lunch Program. The questionnaire collected data on local food purchasing, edible school gardens, other farm to school activities and policies, and outcomes and challenges of participating in farm to school activities. A total of 12,559 SFAs submitted a response to the 2023 Census.

Processing methods and equipment used

The 2023 Census was administered solely via the web. The study team cleaned the raw data to ensure the data were as correct, complete, and consistent as possible. This process involved examining the data for logical errors and removing implausible values. The study team linked the 2023 Census data to information from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD). Records from the CCD were used to construct a measure of urbanicity, which classifies the area in which schools are located.

Study date(s) and duration

Data collection occurred from October 2, 2023 to January 7, 2024. Questions asked about activities prior to, during and after SY 2022-23. The 2023 Census asked SFAs whether they currently participated in, had ever participated in or planned to participate in any of 32 farm to school activities. Based on those answers, SFAs received a defined set of further questions.

Study spatial scale (size of replicates and spatial scale of study area)

Respondents to the survey included SFAs from all 50 States as well as American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, DC.

Level of true replication

Unknown

Sampling precision (within-replicate sampling or pseudoreplication)

No sampling was involved in the collection of this data.

Level of subsampling (number and repeat or within-replicate sampling)

No sampling was involved in the collection of this data.

Study design (before–after, control–impacts, time series, before–after-control–impacts)

None – Non-experimental

Description of any data manipulation, modeling, or statistical analysis undertaken

Each entry in the dataset contains SFA-level responses to the Census questionnaire for SFAs that responded. This file includes information from only SFAs that clicked “Submit” on the questionnaire. (The dataset used to create the 2023 Farm to School Census Report includes additional SFAs that answered enough questions for their response to be considered usable.)

In addition, the file contains constructed variables used for analytic purposes. The file does not include weights created to produce national estimates for the 2023 Farm to School Census Report.

The dataset identified SFAs, but to protect individual privacy the file does not include any information for the individual who completed the questionnaire. All responses to open-ended questions (i.e., containing user-supplied text) were also removed to protect privacy.

Description of any gaps in the data or other limiting factors

See the full 2023 Farm to School Census Report [https://www.fns.usda.gov/research/f2s/2023-census] for a detailed explanation of the study’s limitations.

Outcome measurement methods and equipment used

None