Najla Veloso, Executive Secretary of the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES) and Senior School Feeding Specialist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
We live in an era where the economic, social, and environmental challenges of different countries are interconnected and affect the lives of millions of people worldwide, especially the most vulnerable.
The climate crisis, for example, is an undeniable reality, with devastating consequences for the global population. Houses are destroyed, crops are wiped out, extreme floods and droughts occur, among other phenomena — events that undermine sources of income and compromise the livelihoods of thousands of families, forcing them to migrate in search of survival.
According to the 2024 report The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World¹, produced by five United Nations agencies, approximately 733 million people suffer from hunger, and 3 billion do not have access to a healthy diet.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, hunger affects 41 million people, while moderate or severe food insecurity reaches 187.6 million. These numbers have decreased in recent years: 4.3 million people have overcome hunger, and 37.3 million have moved out of moderate or severe food insecurity since 2021, according to the Overview of Food Security in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)², published in January 2025.
Additionally, this regional document highlights that 20 countries in the region are vulnerable to extreme climate events and climate variability. The Overview also underscores the significant increase in food prices. It can be inferred that climate change is exacerbating food and nutritional insecurity and is compounded by structural problems such as high levels of inequality, poverty, and lack of access to healthy diets due to their high cost. The document reveals that between 2019 and 2023, hunger increased by 1.5% in countries affected by climate variability and events such as droughts, floods, storms, among others.
The good news is that, despite so many adversities, there are existing policies that can contribute to addressing these challenges. One of them is school feeding, which reaches approximately 418 million students worldwide³, with the potential to ensure student nutrition, educate about food and environmental issues, and strengthen family farming — a sector still vulnerable in many countries. By prioritizing purchases from smallholder farmers, local governments drive territorial development and promote more sustainable agricultural practices.
Brazil’s National School Feeding Programme (PNAE), implemented by the National Fund for Educational Development (FNDE), has been considered a successful model of this type of initiative for many countries, particularly in LAC. One of its key features is the requirement that at least 30% of federal funds allocated to school feeding be used to purchase products from family farmers. In 2022, an FNDE study revealed that the national average for local product purchases reached 45%, surpassing the established target. Many LAC countries have already made progress in local procurement and are overcoming their challenges in strengthening this internal market.
This public policy model, based on the purchase of local products, contributes to strengthening the local economy, promotes short production and consumption circuits, and plays a crucial role in biodiversity preservation. At the same time, it fosters employment, income, and dignity for thousands of people in rural communities, reducing migration to cities in search of better opportunities.
It also enables production planning, ensures a greater variety of products, and helps reduce carbon emissions. Likewise, it supports farmers in adopting sustainable and climate-resilient practices while protecting their livelihoods, guaranteeing a stable, predictable, and secure market. Additionally, it encourages soil and water conservation practices, ensuring their availability in the long term. It also promotes crop diversification, including products more resistant to climate extremes.
Beyond strengthening family farming, another crucial component that school feeding programmes can offer is food and nutrition education (FNE), which plays a fundamental role in promoting healthier eating habits among younger generations and raising awareness about the impact of food production on the environment. This education informs, transforms, and fosters a sense of individual responsibility, encouraging conscious food choices that can contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change.
The Overview document, previously mentioned, highlights the comprehensive and multisectoral role of school feeding, among other public policies, as a possible alternative for social protection and the guarantee of the human right to adequate food for students, especially the most vulnerable. In this way, it contributes to reducing food insecurity and strengthening families’ capacity to cope with crises and extreme climate events.
In addition to these potential contributions, school feeding programmes provide an opportunity for dialogue among policymakers, technicians, teachers, farmers, and other stakeholders about the more than 1 billion tons of food lost and wasted worldwide each year, according to data from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)⁵. It is worth remembering that one of the most challenging targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to halve food losses and waste in production, retail, and consumption by 2030.
For these solutions to be effective and replicable, it is essential to ensure coordination between governments, civil society, and international institutions, as well as to drive cultural change in each student and each family. That is why it is important to recognize that the exchange of best practices and continuous dialogue on local solutions help generate knowledge, enable social innovations to be applied in different contexts, and strengthen implemented social policies.
In this context, the partnership between the Government of Brazil — through FNDE and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) — and FAO since 2009 has been an example of regional initiative toward necessary transformations. Together, FAO and governments have worked to consolidate and strengthen school feeding programmes. In 2018, this collaboration resulted in the creation of the Sustainable School Feeding Network (RAES), a forum for dialogue and the exchange of experiences and best practices that has already involved 26 countries in its actions.
This cooperation has sought to offer different platforms and activities, such as virtual dialogues among LAC countries, technical missions for exchanging best practices in school feeding programmes, and, above all, training for professionals working in school feeding in these countries.
RAES and its members are building a regional agenda for sustainable school feeding in 2025, aware that the effects of climate change represent one of the greatest challenges the region must face. At the same time, they are working to ensure that all public school students have access to quality food, recognizing the crucial role that school feeding programmes play in combating hunger, ensuring the human right to food, and promoting healthy consumption habits.
Our regional challenge is to expand this understanding to more policymakers, ensuring that everyone feels committed to strengthening, consolidating, and expanding their school feeding programmes, fully aware of their vast potential in addressing the greatest climate challenge of our time. We understand that the challenge is global, but the solutions will be applied at the local level. That is what we have been working toward.
Sources used:
- FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2024. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 – Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. Rome.
- FAO, IFAD, PAHO, UNICEF and WFP. 2025. Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2024 – Building resilience to climate variability and extremes for food security and nutrition. Santiago.
- WFP. 2022. State of School Feeding Worldwide 2022. Rome, World Food Programme.
- Governo do Brasil. Compra de alimentos da agricultura familiar para a alimentação escolar registra avanço nos últimos anos. Disponível em: https://www.gov.br/fnde/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/compra-de-alimentos-da-agricultura-familiar-para-a-alimentacao-escolar-registra-avanco-nos-ultimos-anos
- United Nations Environment Programme. 2024. Food Waste Index Report 2024. Think Eat Save: Tracking Progress to Halve Global Food Waste. https://wedocs.unep.org/20.500.11822/45230
