Background
The implementation of the Sustainable Schools methodology in the province of Huancayo, located in the Mantaro Valley, in the Junín region, in Peru, began in 2016 with the support of the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation. At the time, the government of Peru was implementing a new school feeding program called Qali Warma, with important technical reformulations, mainly in terms of food quality and safety.
Brazilian cooperation supported the design of several instruments and the Sustainable Schools methodology integrated several elements, such as food and nutrition education, community participation, school gardens, multisectoral coordination and articulation, and added direct purchases from family farming. In Huancayo, Junín, there was a combination of factors that allowed the successful development of this initiative and the efforts of many actors in the food system in areas such as agriculture, education, health, among others such as NGOs and academia. This joint work was carried out under the leadership of the local municipality.
Developed activities
Implementation of Sustainable Schools in the region of Junín, Peru, raising awareness of public managers in the first phase. Afterwards, the private sector also participated in professional training with those responsible for school feeding programmes, farmers, technicians and public managers.
The training was focused on topics such as food and nutrition education, especially the course School Feeding as an Educational Strategy for a Healthy Life (developed by the Brazil-FAO Cooperation and already in its third edition). This helped to strengthen and build capacity in the Peruvian school feeding program.
In addition, there was a wide articulation of these activities with other social programs in Peru, with the integration of school gardens with projects such as Pensión 65, valuing the experience of the elderly community in the implementation of school gardens using ancestral knowledge.
In order to link family farming to school meals, a purchase modality was designed through the municipality, with its own resources, which delivers primary products in conjunction with the Qali Warma program, providing a basic basket of non-perishable foods. Over time, the process began to expand and spread to other districts and provinces in different regions, such as Huancavelica, Loreto, Tumbes, Arequipa, among others.
It is noteworthy that this type of purchase is not an obligation, but the result of a work of convincing and raising awareness in the municipalities within the scope of their objectives of overcoming malnutrition, especially anemia. The joint work made it possible to generate good eating habits in a highly vulnerable population – children and young people – and, on the other hand, to improve the quality of life of small family farmers. In all these activities, the Sustainable Schools methodology made it possible to strengthen food security at the territorial level.
This experience, accompanied by the Brazil-FAO Cooperation, made it possible to find the roadmap in the territory for the articulation of small farmers to the food service of Qali Warma, highlighting that there is no single model of a school feeding program that acquires products from family farming. They are flexible and diversified according to the situation and local reality.
In addition, in 2021 Peru passed Law 31,071, that regulates state purchases of food from family farming, and its Regulation (DS nº 012-2021-MIDAGRI, establishing an obligation for all public entities gradually – minimum of 30% until 2024).
Applied methodology
– Reformulation of the school feeding program with the implementation of elements of the Sustainable Schools methodology.
– Inter-institutional articulation with local school feeding managers, mayors, politicians and technicians from different areas such as education, health, agriculture and social development.
– Raising awareness of the importance of quality school meals, adapting and improving menus.
– Conviction and awareness of the need to allocate funds for public purchases to family farming.
– Sensitization and experiential training with farmers on the importance of the agricultural food security approach, ensuring correct risk management in production and processing.
– Rescue of the ancestral practices of small family farming producers with agroecological innovations, promoting the circular economy.
Institutions involved
Brazil-FAO Cooperation, FAO-Peru, Qali Warma Program, Senasa (health authority), Regional Directorate of Education, Health, Agriculture, Fovida NGO, Ayllu Kushisha Producers Association of Pucara, Municipalities of Pucara, El Tambo and Huancayo, University of Central Peru, Faculty of Food Industries, Universidad Privada Los Andes, Professional School of Human Nutrition.
Qualitative and quantitative data
There are currently a total of 91 Sustainable Schools, benefiting more than 6,673 users of the Qali Warma. In the Junín region, there are 43 Sustainable Schools, in Huancavelica, 38, in Loreto, 2 and in Arequipa, 8.
Description of beneficiaries
Number of students benefited: 6,673
-Participation of 15 organizations of small producers formed by the Association of Producers, Agricultural Cooperatives and Peasant Communities of the Upper Andean.
Number of Sustainable Schools: 91
Results
– Awareness of the team responsible for school feeding about the importance of healthy eating, which was achieved through courses, training and many joint activities.
– Change from a food service vision to a nutritional vision, with a change in awareness with safety as the flagship.
– Implementation of school gardens.
– Guidelines for improving menus, with an intercultural approach and consumption of local products.
– Implementation of purchases from local family farming, with great evolution in recent years.
– Improvement of the eating habits of thousands of families.
– Institutionalization of the Sustainable Schools methodology, as it is highly adaptable.
– Strengthening the capacities of municipal specialists and technicians, especially in the management of social, economic and planning development.
– Training to teach producers to be suppliers of the State.
– Support for producer groups to ensure safe, healthy and innocuous food in the supply chain.
– Practical training with information in good production and hygiene practices and good primary processing practices for local farmers.
– Certification and adequacy of local rural production.
– Union of several programs working together, from different ministries, NGOs and universities.
Challenges and advances
Challenges
– The work in Junín generates a lot of expectation of replication in other places, which does not always happen due to the confluence of factors existing there.
– Continue to strengthen the experience in Junín for scaling-up, taking the skills learned to other parts of the country through the exchange of knowledge and good practices.
– Mobilize resources to meet all social expectations and demands.
– Get more alliances to carry out the Sustainable Schools strategy as effectively as possible.
– Changing mayors is a challenge due to different priorities between administrations.
Advances:
– There is a lot of appropriation of the Sustainable Schools model by local authorities.
– Active participation of all actors from different institutions.
– Income for small producers who have been trained to supply food to the State.
– Great relationship of trust and teamwork, generating social capital.
– Huancayo has become a reference in food policy, offering technical internships and exchanges to different regions of Peru.
– Formation of school feeding committees (CAE, for its acronym in Spanish) that allow the monitoring and traceability of food from family farming.
– Implementation of food and nutrition education practices and school gardens.
– Improvement of school infrastructure..
– Education is closer to food production, which promotes the relevance of local consumption, as well as its valorization.
– Sustainable Schools is a key methodology for local governments to understand the importance of budget allocation, which was previously unknown and very difficult to obtain.
– Producers apply agroecological innovations with great commitment once they are trained.
– Native potato (papa nativa) is currently being offered on the school feeding program, which allows the visibility and recognition of small producers and local and regional biodiversity.
