School Garden Certification Program
To encourage use of best practices in school gardens, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) has created a School Garden Certification Program for National School Lunch Program Sponsors to help ensure that techniques used to grow, harvest and handle produce from a school garden meet industry standards for consumable products. The certification process includes an online training component, a self-assessment checklist and an on-site final assessment. When you are ready to begin your online training, you must create a user account.
Plan Your Garden
- Take the School Garden Certification Program Training.
- Contact your local UF/IFAS Extension office to request assistance.
Start Your Garden
- Build your garden!
- Get students involved in the planting process.
- Work toward certifying your garden!
Certify Your School Garden and Receive a $500 Award
- Complete the School Garden Certification Program Training.
- Create and complete a
School Garden Food Safety Plan and Self-Assessment Checklist
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and submit it to InfoFNW@FDACS.gov. - FDACS will schedule a final assessment to be conducted by our Division of Fruit and Vegetables.
- Once the school has passed the final assessment, FDACS will award the first 20 school gardens to be certified $500 to be used toward garden activities or education.
- School Garden Certification will remain valid until one year after the award date.
For more information, check out our
2019-2020 School Garden Census
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