São Paulo – Even before the enactment of a federal law requiring that 30% of food in Brazilian school meals come from family farming, the farms in a municipality in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul were already supplying school kitchens. The municipality is named Dois Irmãos, is located 50 kilometres away from the state capital Porto Alegre, and the success of the initiative was the theme of a research awarded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Centre of Food Studies and Research (NEPA, in the Portuguese acronym) of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), in the field of food and nutrition security.
The survey was conducted by Rio Grande do Sul native Rozane Márcia Triches, who wrote the article that won the FAO award alongside her doctoral supervisor, professor Sergio Schneider of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Ufrgs). The winners were announced last week and the contest, which covers Latin America and the Caribbean, included 48 articles from eight different countries. The third and fifth in the contest were also Brazilians. The second place went to a Peruvian project, and the fourth, to a Mexican article.
Rozane, who is a nutritionist at the Secretariat of Education of the Dois Irmãos City Hall, is going to defend her doctoral thesis in June this year. In the thesis – as well as in the article submitted to the FAO – she describes the municipality’s experience with school meals and family farming. “Since 2004, the municipality has been buying from family farmers,” she says. This happened because in 2003, she ran a survey among public school students, as part of her master’s thesis, and found out that they were overweight.
Thus, it was ascertained that they needed to eat more vegetables. Another finding was that the low quality of vegetables purchased at a food warehouse led children do dislike natural products. Thus, starting in 2004, food for school meals began coming directly from small farms. The quality improved, as did the diversity. “Those who do not like a certain type of vegetable, for instance, may eat another one,” explains Rozane. She also created a market for the farmers.
By the time the purchases became provided for by law, in 2009, the schools in Dois Irmãos were already buying from family farmers. The law also exempted family farming products from participating in tenders before being purchased. The purchase system is managed at the municipalities, Schneider explains, by school meal councils comprising the public sector, rural workers unions, students’ parents, and farmers. It is part of a public policy of generating opportunities to small properties and improving the quality of food in the country.
According to Schneider, who is a sociologist and postgraduate professor in Rural Development and Sociology at the Ufrgs, Brazil is starting along the path trodden by developed countries, which have obesity and overweight problems. These, he claims, stem from an ever-increasing consumption of industrialized products. “More and more people are victims of food insecurity not for lack of food, but due to poor food quality,” he says. On the other hand, agriculture has less and less alternatives when it comes to selling its products. “Farmers are growing increasingly dependent on large chains,” he explains.
In an interview to ANBA, Rozane claims that she was surprised, but glad upon hearing of the contest, in which she participated by suggestion of her doctoral supervisor. "There were competitors from other countries, so I though I would have a slim chance of winning," she says. Rozane and Schneider should be officially awarded by the FAO in October in Santiago, Chile.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
