FAO |
International
School Meals Day, celebrated around the world today, is a timely
reminder of the need to promote healthy eating habits for all children
through sustainable policies, including sourcing food from family
farmers.
Every day around
370 million children around the world are fed at school through school
meals programmes that are run in varying degrees by national
governments.
Each programme is
different: beans and rice in Madagascar, spicy lentils in the
Philippines, vegetable pastries and fruit in Jordan. In some countries
it may be a healthy snack, or it could include take-home food such as
vitamin A-enriched oil for the whole family.
School meals have
proved successful in providing educational and health benefits to the
most vulnerable children. School meals boost school attendance, and a
full stomach can help students concentrate on their lessons.
Communities,
particularly in rural areas, also benefit when family farmers and small
and medium enterprises are the main source of healthy food for the
schools.
International School Meals Day marks these achievements and helps raise greater awareness of the value of school meals globallyA generation of well-nourished children
FAO believes that
consistent global investments in school meals will lead to a generation
of children who develop healthy eating habits and who benefit from a
diverse diet. Ultimately this effort will contribute to achieving the
Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger.
FAO supports school
meals in a range of ways including technical support to governments on
sustainable agriculture, food safety and standards, support to family
farmers to grow surplus harvests to sell to schools, public procurement
regulations, nutritional and food guidelines and nutrition education
activities.
On the policy
front, FAO is working with governments and other partners to bring
together a range of sectors - such as health, education, social
protection and agriculture - to formulate comprehensive and effective
national policies that can be implemented in a government-led setting.
This month, FAO
jointly presented the Home-Grown School Feeding Resource Framework,
together with partners including the World Food Programme. The framework
supports governments through the process of policy formulation,
implementation and evaluation of school meals programmes. It also brings
together the technical expertise of different stakeholders in a
programmatic and coherent way to be easily accessed by countries
requesting technical assistance.
Family farmers a link in the school meals supply chain
In Africa, the
Purchase from Africans for Africa (PAA Africa) programme is modelled on
Brazil's achievements in fighting hunger and poverty, and is helping
promote local agricultural production and school meals.
FAO provides
technical assistance for governments to procure food for public
institutions, such as schools, directly from small-scale family farmers.
FAO teams also work directly with family farmers to help them achieve
sustainable gains in agricultural productivity, as well as improve their
harvesting and post-harvest techniques leading to better quality
produce and less loss and waste.
During the
programme's second phase, around 16,000 family farmers were able to sell
2,700 tons of food for school meals for around 37,000 students.
Helping children make healthy choices
The school is an
ideal setting for teaching basic skills in food, nutrition and health.
In many communities, schools may be the only place where children
acquire these important life skills.
Among many tools,
growing and preparing garden food at school can be instrumental.
Combined with diversified school meals and nutrition education, it
increases children's preferences for fruits and vegetables. This food
and nutrition education is an essential element in the prevention and
control of diet-related health problems. For this reason, FAO provides
technical assistance for integrating food and nutrition education in the
primary school curriculum.
FAO also supports
schools to ensure that all foods, meals and snacks available at school
are nutritionally adequate and appropriate for the school-age child.
Case study: Latin America and the Caribbean
In 2009, a school
feeding programme based on the National School Feeding Programme of
Brazil was launched in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through
inter-sectoral policy and legal mechanisms it developed actions for food
and nutrition education, and encouraged purchases for the programmes to
be made from local farming families. In 2013, a study conducted in
eight of the participating countries, surveying a territory encompassing
18 million students, showed that the programmes not only promote school
attendance and bolster the learning process, but also increase the
income of the community's farmers.
Case Study: Cape Verde
In Cape Verde, the
school meals programme was introduced by the UN in 1979, and the
government took ownership in 2010. Since then FAO has worked with the
government and other UN agencies to diversify the school meals by
linking local farmers to the procurement process to increase the supply
of local fruit, vegetables, beans and fish to school canteens. Around
9000 primary school students benefited from this initiative, as did
local farmers and fishers who had an assured market.
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