The Department of Agriculture’s school meal programs feed about 30 million children every day. Participating school districts must buy domestic products for the meals as much as possible.
USDA allows some exceptions to this rule based on availability, cost, and quality of domestic products. School districts mostly used exceptions to buy fruits that weren’t grown domestically, such as bananas and pineapples.
When school districts use exceptions, they must document why. But the forms used to document exceptions aren’t standardized, making implementation of the rule inconsistent across the U.S.
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