2014 – National Education Development Fund, Brazil

2014 – National Education Development Fund, Brazil

National School Feeding Program


Background:
The “PNAE – The National School Feeding Program” is the oldest federal governmental social program on feeding and nutrition in Brazil. It emerged more than 50 years ago and developed over the years until it became a state policy law (11.947) in 2009. It contributes to student’s biopsychosocial growth and development, improves learning, school performance, promotion of healthy eating habits and the provision of healthy meals that cover at least 20% of the nutritional needs during the school year. In 2013 the program provided food in 170,000 schools for 45 million students every school day. According to the Brazilian Constitution, school feeding is established as a right of every student in public education. To support local development and provide regional healthy food, at least 30% of PNAEs resources have to be used to purchase
food from family farmers. With an annual budget of around US$2 billion, PNAE has the resources to increase family farm incomes and expand market opportunities

What we did / what we are doing
Below is a short summary of the main points of the PNAEs guidelines

– show the pupils and students the importance of appropriate and healthy nourishment by participating in school vegetable garden projects

– increase their knowledge about food and nutrition by including these topics as school subjects in the timetable

– consider the variety of regional habits and cultural traditions by special trainings for nutritionists, the school cooks and the school community

– link State Actions to National Food and Nutritional Security Policies

– develop better mechanisms of social control/ School Feeding Council Nutritional requirements

– provide at least 3 portions of vegetables and/or fruits per week

– food and beverage products with low nutritional value (soda, artificial juice etc.) are not allowed and neither are foods which contain high levels of sugar, fat and salt products

Outcome(s)
One of the PNAEs main achievements is the promotion of purchasing produce from family farmers which is considered important as it helps increase the awareness of the children when it comes to healthy food.
Partnerships with some universities have helped to implement the tutoring of the guidelines of PNAE for everyone who works with and benefits from school feeding.

Next steps
Increasing the number of universities supporting the PNAE and to continue the progress of nutritional upbringing by enabling the further education of school staff in this area.
The PNAE plans to get through to more students by highlighting the importance of a balanced nutritional diet using our online information portals as well as offering online courses about adequate nourishment and educate in eating habits etc. Furthermore the PNAE wants to increase the amount of food purchased from family farmers. Considering the relevance of the commemoration of the International school meals day, Brazilian national school feeding program would like to join this movement by celebrating this day.

Contact name
Albaneide Peixinho

Email address
albaneide.peixinho@fnde.gov.br

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