The Relationship between the Change in Federal Procurement Rules in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 and the Use of Local Foods in the National School Lunch Program

Abstract

In recent years, policymakers, school nutrition professionals, and advocates have sought to improve the quality of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) through initiatives such as using local foods in school meal programs. While the school food procurement process is burdensome on its own, there are additional administrative costs related to the procurement of local foods, primarily due to the knowledge of procurement regulations and the local food economy required to implement such a program. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (2018 NDAA) changed the federal procurement thresholds for micro-purchasing and simple acquisitions by increasing federal financial assistance awards. This study hypothesizes that these procurement law changes will increase school food authorities’ use of local foods in the NSLP. Using data from the 2019 Farm to School Census, I estimate a fixed effects regression model to analyze the relationship between the use of local foods in the NSLP and the 2018 NDAA. I find that the probability of an SFA using local foods in the NSLP increased by about 20 percentage points after the 2018 NDAA went into effect, holding constant all time-invariant school food authority characteristics.