School meals could drive economic growth and food system transformation

(Press-News.org) School meals, provided for free by governments around the world, could be used to curb global hunger and promote a sustainable global food system, finds a new study by UCL (University College London) researchers.

In a new report, “A Mission-Oriented Approach to School Meals: An opportunity for cross-departmental and multi-sector industrial strategy”, published by UCL Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose in collaboration with the UN World Food Programme, researchers looked at ways governments can use school meals procurement to encourage better farming practices, improve access to nutritious meals and increase local economic development. By examining case studies of Scotland, Sweden and Brazil, the team explored what has been done already to use school meals as an economic instrument, and what opportunities exist.

School meals are one of the most widespread social safety nets in the world, reaching an estimated 466 million children. With about US $84 billion (£62.2 billion) spent annually, they constitute a potentially powerful tool for governments to shape the economy and drive sustainable transformation across food systems.

The global food system, which is responsible for an estimated one-third of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), is the primary driver of biodiversity and ecosystem loss and a major contributor to land degradation and the global water crisis. Current school meals procurement often reinforces these problems.

The researchers call for school meal procurement to be redesigned to maximise public value by designing procurement strategies that provide nutritious meals, encourage sustainable farming and good production practices and increase participation from local producers. This would represent a general policy shift towards using public procurement to direct private sector behaviour towards public goals - from ‘fixing markets’ after the fact to proactively shaping markets.

Lead author, Professor Mariana Mazzucato (Founding Director, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose) said: “School meals are a tremendous opportunity for governments to use their purchasing power to promote the public good. By creating a market for school meals that are healthy, sustainable, tasty and accessible, well-designed food procurement can change the structure of local economies and lead to a more diverse, competitive, innovative and values-aligned supplier pool. This kind of mission-oriented industrial strategy should be seen as an investment, not a cost.” This work builds on Professor Mazzucato’s wider work on mission-oriented frameworks.

The report highlights lessons from Scotland’s school meals programme, which has sought to promote better health equality across the country since it was first established in 2007. Since then, it’s been expanded twice to include all students between primary school years one and five, with plans to further extend it to all primary school children.

While successful in tackling long-standing health and economic inequalities, the report goes on to say that the £238 million per year programme could do more to create market opportunities for local food producers and to promote Scotland’s net zero and other sustainability goals. The programme is administered separately by Scotland’s 32 local councils which manage their own food procurement and purchasing. With additional strategic coordination, including in the context of Scotland’s recently launched industrial strategy, the report finds that there’s significant potential for school meal policies to drive additional social, environmental and economic benefits.

Drawing on Sweden’s experience, the report points to the power of a mission-oriented approach to drive bottom-up innovation at the local level and the importance of engaging students in programme design. The country's innovation agency, Vinnova, worked with select municipalities and other government agencies to develop a series of prototypes aimed at achieving the mission of providing food to students that is healthy, sustainable and tasty. This example also has some limitations, however, again pointing to the importance of strong national level engagement and an integrated approach that connects school meals with broader food system transformation and industrial strategy agendas.   

The team also looked at what has happened in Brazil. Brazil’s programme has evolved significantly since its inception in 1955, but now the Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar (PNAE) or the National School Feeding Programme, is one of the world’s largest, serving over 50 million meals daily during the school year. It aims to combat child hunger, improve nutrition and education outcomes and create opportunities for family-run farms. Recently, it has also been highlighted as an instrument for achieving national industrial strategy goals related to food and nutrition security. Its operation is largely decentralised to the local level, but national requirements ensure that at least 30 percent of funds must be used to purchase food from family farmers and allows for more to be spent on food grown sustainably. These requirements have contributed to an increase in domestic food production, job creation, higher household incomes among participating producers, more diverse markets and wider adoption of sustainable practices.

Co-author Policy Fellow Sarah Doyle (UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose) said: “There is widespread agreement that school meals are good for kids. But until they are also understood as an opportunity for farmers and businesses, and for food system transformation, their potential won’t be met and they will continue to be underfunded. The global food system is failing to feed billions of people. It is also responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, is a major driver of ecological degradation and is facing declining productivity - challenges that will only intensify as the world’s population grows. As a tool of green industrial strategy, school meals procurement can create market opportunities that promote food system transformation and contribute to sustainable growth.”

This report was developed in collaboration with the United Nations World Food Programme.

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