(10/30/25) BATON ROUGE, La. — Taking a break from their chores Wednesday morning, Louisiana agricultural producers mingled over brunch with the buyers who purchase their goods for school districts and other organizations.

At Meet the Buyer and Greet the Grower, a regular event hosted by Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program, ranchers and fruit and vegetable growers were able to link their faces and handshakes to the products they sell.

“A lot of times, producers don’t know where to start to make connections,” said Crystal Besse, program director of Seeds to Success, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and run through an interagency agreement between the LSU AgCenter and the Louisiana Department of Education.

“Relationships are key, and that’s what we want to start here,” Besse said. “We want to start those relationships and get the conversation started so that later, when they’re just making phone calls, that’s a familiar person that they’ve talked to.”

Connecting agricultural producers with schools is one aspect of the Seeds to Success mission along with school garden programming and local food education. Meet the Buyer and Greet the Grower — held regularly since 2018 — features face-to-face conversations and a speed-networking session where each producer sits with each buyer in seven-minute intervals.

“Putting a face to a name really helps some of these buyers to know that there is local produce,” said Nichole Liuzza, co-owner of Liuzza Family Farm, who attended the event for the first time. “They know, ‘I can buy local tomatoes. I can buy local cucumbers in the volume that I need. I don’t just have to get whatever the warehouse has.’”

Wednesday’s event at the Harry B. Nelson Memorial building in Baton Rouge began with a brief educational session featuring Seeds to Success faculty and the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry. Tyne Bankester of Seeds to Success explained MarketMaker, a free networking platform that allows producers and buyers to create profiles, which not only expands their business network but also creates a searchable database for all Louisianans to find locally grown food. She launched the Find Me on MarketMaker campaign, which helps producers advertise their profiles on the site to potential buyers.

“Especially in post-pandemic life, and with the Make America Healthy Again initiative, more and more people are paying attention to what they’re eating and where it’s coming from, and what it goes through to get from where it grew to their plates,” said Bankester, the Seeds to Success program manager for curriculum integration and MarketMaker. “MarketMaker is a really good solution to that for a lot of people because they’re able to see who’s in my area. Where are they? What do they have?”

In recent years, schools received extra funding to purchase local foods. Beginning in 2022, the USDA Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement provided $3.3 million for Louisiana schools to procure local, minimally processed food from Louisiana producers for cafeterias and other school nutrition needs. While the funding was canceled earlier this year, those grant dollars helped some school systems see the value in local food procurement.

“I think it’s sparked an interest, and we see that it is possible,” said Jenny Welch, a child nutrition program supervisor with the Avoyelles Parish School Board. “We just have to take different avenues on how we procure it right and be very intentional with how we purchase to get what we want.”

Some producers, such as James McCready, of H2Greaux Farms in Ouachita Parish, have experienced continued growth even after the Local Food for Schools funding ended.

“I think that a lot of the school districts are realizing that they’re seeing a lot of positive impact not just economically, but just in student performance and overall health and better-quality food,” said McCready, who grows several varieties of lettuce in a hydroponic system.

Since joining the Louisiana Farm to School Program in 2017, Besse has also witnessed schools learning the value of fresh, local foods.

“When it’s fresher, more kids are going to eat it,” Besse said. “When it looks nice on the plate, more kids are going to eat it.”

Purchasing appetizing, fresh foods will also entice more students to eat in the cafeteria, Besse said. Extra sales could help schools buy more local food.

“When you have that local ingredient on the cafeteria tray, more kids are going to buy a lunch,” she said. “So, they’ll generate more sales, and that’ll give them a little bit more money to buy local.”

For more information on Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program, visit seedstosuccess.com.

During the Meet the Buyer and Greet the Grower event held by Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program on Oct. 29, Chip Perrin of Coastal Plains Meat Co. in Eunice, left, discusses selling beef with Lorrie Campbell of the Central Community School System. Photo by Kyle Peveto/LSU AgCenter

Donna Fontenot, left, and Sammy Fontenot of Fontenot Beef LLC in Iowa, Louisiana, explain their business model to school nutrition buyers during the Meet the Buyer and Greet the Grower event held by Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program on Oct. 29. Photo by Kyle Peveto/LSU AgCenter

James McCready of H2Greaux Farms in Ouachita Parish, left, meets with Lorrie Campbell from the Central Community School System during the Meet the Buyer and Greet the Grower event held by Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program on Oct. 29. Photo by Kyle Peveto/LSU AgCenter

Nichole Liuzza of Liuzza Family Farm in Tangipahoa Parish, right, meets with Melissa Boudreaux, school food service director for the International School of Louisiana at the Meet the Buyer and Greet the Grower event held by Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program on Oct. 29. Photo by Kyle Peveto/LSU AgCenter