Guyana to learn from Brazil’s school feeding programmes, family farming

May 14, 2017 News

Representatives from Guyana and twelve other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean will be in Vitória, Brazil from May 16 to 18, to learn about the Brazilian experience of School Feeding Programmes and purchasing from Family Farming.
The visit is an international exchange mission promoted by the Internal Cooperation Programme between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the government of Brazil.
The FAO said on Friday that during the visit, representatives from Guyana, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Jamaica, Suriname, Bahamas, El Salvador, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Paraguay will get to know schools, food distribution centres, family farming cooperatives and rural lands, as well as participate in a meeting with the Municipal Government of Vitória to learn about the public policies executed throughout the municipalities in the area of school feeding programmes.
According to Alan Bojanic, FAO’s representative in Brazil, the mission will contribute to strengthen knowledge about the importance of school feeding coupled with the direct purchase of products from family farming.
Bojanic also noted that the exchange of experiences could contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), signed by the members of the United Nations.
“Before we had the goal of reducing hunger and poverty, now we need to eliminate food insecurity, guarantee sustainability, resilience and the good use of natural resources, and this goal permeates various sectors of society and the production chain”, Bojanic said.
This is the first time that the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Programme will visit Espírito Santo for an international technical mission.
“This technical visit is an important strategy for the empowerment for the countries’ national human capacities and broadening the vision of this topic. The National School Feeding Programme (PNAE) is a reference for other countries of the region, for its organizational structure and breadth,” says Najla Veloso, project regional coordinator.
Veloso notes that the countries have constructed a new vision of school feeding programmes, adopting the topic as a social policy under the principle of human right to adequate food, which is implemented with the provision of offering healthy and local food and with actions of food and nutrition education.
The project, strengthening of school feeding programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean has been executed, since 2009.
The project was designed with the experiences and lessons learned in Brazil with more than 60 years of execution of PNAE, a programme that provides daily food to more than 42 million students.
Information from the Ministry of Education website shows that the Government of Guyana commenced its National School Feeding Programme in February 2010.
Currently, the National School Feeding Programme targets All Nursery Schools and All Primary Schools in Grades 1 and 2. The School Feeding Programme was implemented in Regions 1, 2,3,4,5,6,10 and Georgetown. Regions 7, 8 and 9 are targeted separately. The Programme consists of biscuits and juices.

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