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Month: June 2019

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I was in Peace Corps in Peru for about a year and a half; I was placed in the small town of Capilla Central in the district of Olmos in the department of Lambayeque. I was there for a little over a year, and grew to love the place and the people who lived there. Naturally, since I'm in Peru there was no way that I could come to the country without visiting Capilla, so that's where I went last weekend.

Capilla is inland on the northern coast, in the dry forest (bosque seco) ecosystem.

A great many things remained the same - including the warm welcome I received - but there were a few changes, such as the huge new park, still establishing its seedlings:

The birds in front are pavas aliblancas (in English, white-winged turkeys), an emblematic fauna of the zone. I've never seen one, but I'm told they're quite graceful in flight.

Also new were the changes made to the dry riverbed since the 2017 El Niño: the Department of Transportation has lumped up a bunch of the sand into a long hill. I'm not sure what this serves, aside from ensuring that the river channel is deep enough for the deluge of water in the next fenómeno. (Seems to me that it makes more sense to truck away the sand so that it doesn't clog anything up downriver, but that's probably prohibitively expensive.)

I took this picture standing on the sand heap.

I mainly spent my time trying to ensure that I caught up with as many people as possible, handing out maple candies from Maine, gossiping like mad, and enjoying the slower pace of life out in the country.

The world's most beautiful chicken, and Modesto under the ciruela/plum tree.

However, because I stayed from Saturday afternoon to Monday afternoon, I was invited to see what Qali Warma looks like in Capilla. On Saturday, Nelly and Fanny were putting away the recent shipment of food they had received for the month, and talked to me about their experiences with Qali Warma.

Pictured is part of the delivery, and includes quick-cooked oats with things like maca, quinoa, and amaranth, wheat flour, amaranth flour, oil, rice, noodles, sugar, cornstarch, bars of chocolate for hot chocolate, cans of milk, cans of chicken or fish, galletas of various descriptions.

This opportunity gave me the answer to one of the mysteries plaguing me during my research: what, exactly, is a 'galleta'? Galleta in Spanish can translate to any number of things: cookie, cracker, biscuit. I've been using 'biscuit' in my thesis as it is ambiguous - they can be either sweet or savory. Nelly and Fanny showed me that the galletas they receive can be either, and that it depends on the rotation of things that Qali Warma send them. (And, of course, the kids like the sweet ones better - go figure.)

This 'rotation' is something new this year: so the kids don't get crazy bored with the school meals, the deliveries are on a three month rotation. There's something different for each month for three months, after which point the cycle restarts. This is something that the Buying Committee gets to decide; they stay within the regulations of Qali Warma but provide what variation they can.

This is the kitchen where the food is prepared; there's a covered dish rack behind where the photo was taken, so that dust/sand doesn't dirty the dishes before they're used again.

The cook arrives at the school around seven a.m. to start cooking the breakfast, and serves breakfast from around 7:45 to 8:30, depending on when the kids arrive. There's a dedicated place for the children to eat (which not all schools have), though considering that some kids arrived late, they had to eat their breakfast in the classroom.

On Monday, the menu was milk with cornstarch, sugar, and vanilla with a cracker that had either quinoa or maca in it. I was given a portion, and can tell you that the milk was very sweet, slightly thickened from the cornstarch, and had a nice vanilla taste; most of the kids drank all of theirs. The crackers...those mostly went into pockets. I was told that a lot of the kids don't eat the crackers given to them, instead pocketing them and giving them to their family or to pigs or dogs.

Maca is an Andean tuber, and has no English translation.

On days when there's a rice or noodle dish with some protein in it, kids may or may not eat that as well - this is because Qali Warma doesn't give money for things like condiments or spices, so it doesn't necessarily taste great. (Though I'll also note that a couple people blamed the cook for the taste of the food - but considering what she has to work with, I think she's doing fine). The parents put together money every month (4 soles/parent, ~1 USD) to buy things such as extra ingredients - this can be more of something they run out of (they usually run out of sugar, and considering how sweet the milk was that morning, I can understand why), spices, or vegetables (usually onion) - or to refill the tanks of gas that they use for cooking.

Qali Warma gave them the stove (though the cook noted that when it was delivered, one of the burners broke, so there are only two burners working), as well as the two tanks of gas. Qali Warma doesn't repay to refill the gas, but considering the large initial investment for the tank itself, that they gave the tanks is a huge advantage.

It was also good to see some of the signage that was posted in the kitchen - numbers to call in case there was anything wrong with the food, a poster on fortified rice (which, by the way, the kids don't like because of the texture), amounts of different foods to give per kid, and details on the three-month rotation. I gawped at all of it between talking to the cook and taking sips of milk.

Details of the rotation - my apologies for the abysmal photo quality.

When I asked people what they thought about the program, there were some who figured it was just fine and those who thought it was pretty boring. I think there's consensus that they would like improvements to the program, and I don't think anyone in Qali Warma asked their opinion on the matter. I'm mainly worried about how much sugar seems to be necessary to get the kids to eat their portion of milk, and how sweet the galletas need to be to get eaten in school.

In short, my weekend was a tremendous gain for me personally (I missed Capilla even more than I thought I did), and for my thesis.

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After reading a landslide of formal documents of Qali Warma, I'm able to accurately summarize how the program works:

(Own elaboration.)

All of the big decisions are made at the national level; the Buying Committees (CCs) buy from a list of approved foods; those providers who are given contracts are in charge of delivering food to schools, where there are committees (CAE) who are in charge of receiving, preparing, and giving the food to the children. Qali Warma supervises the process, penalizes providers who do not conform to their standards, and works with agencies such as SENASA, who monitor the quality of foods and the functioning of the value chain.

All the food provided by Qali Warma is shelf-stable (with the exception of bread and eggs). Approved foods include rice, noodles, crackers, different kinds of flour and flaked grains, milk, dried beans and lentils, cheese, olives, and canned 'products of animal origin.' This last category is a collection of strange food items (even to Peruvians - I checked with my office mates), and includes not just canned fish but also canned: chicken, beef tripe, and fish-balls in sauce. Another food in this category sounds horrible to me but is a common food here: sangrecita, chicken blood. I'm told that when it's cooked well, it tastes pretty great.

Sangrecita is the dark mass; the stuff on the side is yuca.

Still, I'd say sangrecita day is a good one to be a vegetarian.

There are set menus that schools follow which have restrictions on the categories of food that can be used each day; they usually have a milk drink with different grains in it or perhaps fruit juice, along with bread, rice, or noodles and a product of animal origin or legumes. Sometimes it's a drink and a cracker or a slice of cake with Andean grains in it.

Most schools follow this scheme, but there are some pilot programs that have changed how Qali Warma works, in order to add fresh produce into the school meals.

One completed and self-perpetuating pilot has taken place in Junin, a department to the east of the department of Lima. There, the FAO and the Junin Qali Warma authorities helped schools begin school gardens, enhanced the capabilities of local farmers, built a processing plant for produce, and helped organize CAEs in participating schools. This was undertaken with a broad base of support from a number of different institutions, and is still in operation after the FAO stepped back.

Farmers working on a model farm near Jauja, Junin. (Note that they're using oxen here, probably because the tractor is busy.) (Own picture)

Here's how it works: each month, the CAEs receive money from each parent for each kid they have in school. This is somewhere around 4-5 soles per child per month, between one and two USD. They use this money to buy fresh foods to complement what they are getting from Qali Warma, and can buy from the regular local market or from the agroecological market that the FAO helped to found through farmer trainings and the processing plant. In many cases, the choice of the CAE is between buying a lot of food of uncertain safety in the normal market or buying less food of better safety in the agroecological market. After trainings, most CAEs prefer buying in the safer markets.

This pilot has produced some great effects, particularly in the level of satisfaction in the service. It does have some flaws, though, as concerns the traceability of foods: if a child gets sick as a result of the school meal, it's crucial to know where that food came from. In addition, the money for the fresh food comes from parents (and in some cases, the municipalities): Qali Warma's funding isn't contributing to this at all. Add onto that that this wouldn't work in every part of Peru, and this pilot remains the sort of thing that provides highly valuable experiences, but something that would have to be tinkered with and changed before its rollout on a national level.

Also near Jauja in Junin, one of Junin's famous lakes. (Own picture.)

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In the readings I have sifted through and in the conversations I have had, corruption is nearly always mentioned as a key problem in Peruvian government. I'm told it's hard to get things done because the money that is allotted for various uses gets siphoned, sometimes every time it changes hands. (I have no hard proof for this, but it shows at the very least how little faith there is in the government.)

Changing Qali Warma would necessitate changing who has responsibility for the program's money, which poses problems. How do you vet people at different levels of government or in the public? Having a strong accounting system with a high level of transparency is both difficult to achieve and highly necessary.

Corruption also damages confianza (trust, fraternity); in an environment where corruption is always expected, people who show passion for a particular project are looked at askance. What is their interest in the project? Do they have the power to mishandle or appropriate money? People with genuine intentions have been minimized in their places of work because of this fear.

Confianza is a very important word in Peru: if there is no confianza, there will be few advances, as each player will constantly be looking over his/her shoulder. Communities receiving the benefits of new or changed programs need confianza in the government or organization affecting the changes, need to know that intentions are pure.

Qali Warma is in a unique position to change how people feel about the government as a whole: if Qali Warma can provide a stellar, safe service, it would be a potent message to the public: there are good people in government who care about you and your children.

For information about solutions to corruption in public procurement, read Transparency International's Manual:

Found at:
https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/curbing_corruption_in_public_procurement_a_practical_guide

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The history behind locally sourced school meal programs began in earnest in 2009 when Brazil launched its Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar (PNAE).

Generally speaking, when we think of Brazil we think about Carnival or impressive amounts of corruption (think Odebrecht); we might even worry about the nationalistic turn the country has taken. But Brazil has - somewhat quietly - sounded out a resounding victory against hunger, enacting coordinated policies designed to feed Brazilians under the umbrella of Fome Zero (Zero Hunger), an intersectorial push that removed Brazil from the World Food Program's Hunger Map in 2014.

WFP Hunger Map 2018, https://www1.wfp.org/publications/2018-hunger-map

One of their first programs began in 2003, the Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos (PAA), which buys food for public institutions; family farmers and agroecologial practices are encouraged, with the end of strengthening the Brazilian economy and providing food autonomy.

PNAE began a few years later; municipalities establish relationships with farmers and other suppliers and buy food for their schools. (This is a drastically different system to Peru, where menus are decided on a national level and purchases are made according to a strict list of allowed products on a regional level.) Brazilian municipalities are aided by nutritionists to ensure that the meals provided are nutritionally adequate; deliveries are made at the schools, where the people in charge of receiving food check for quality and quantity requirements.

There is a minimum of thirty percent of the food purchases to be made locally, which some of the municipalities are exceeding. PNAE is often sourced from framers with smaller plots of land that produce for local markets (rather than export markets for crops such as corn and soy).

Valencia et al (2019) shows the dynamics between farmers who supply PNAE and those who do not:

Valencia et al 2019.

However, this is not an accurate picture of the entire country; these results are from the state of Santa Catalina, which has a highly developed and diverse agricultural mosaic. Other states have not had the same success, and there are reports of municipalities buying no local food in their PNAE programs - in 2014, 3345 of the 5534 municipalities (60 percent) did not reach the 30 percent minimum of local products; 23 percent did not buy locally at all (Hunter et al 2016). This may be because there is a lack of political will or because the agricultural system in the area is not able to provide both for the usual needs of the community and the needs of PNAE, making external sourcing necessary.

The wide-scale support of the program across sectors has garnered international attention and has been responsible for the inspiration behind the school meal programs in dozens of countries in Africa and the Americas, including but definitely not limited to: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Mali.

Groundbreaking public acquisition programs may not be what Brazil is known for on the street, but it is worthy of attention as a model of what is possible, a model that can be changed to fit the conditions of highly varied countries the world over.

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A quick aside: In the past couple of weeks, there was a story going around that a student in the department of La Libertad had died after eating food provided by Qali Warma. This, understandably, freaked out a lot of people.

It turns out that the student died for reasons not connected to her school meal - but I wonder about the damage done regardless. The retraction is always less of a story than the splashy headline that precedes it.

https://www.expreso.com.pe/actualidad/muerte-de-menor-no-fue-por-alimentos-de-qali-warma/

Qali Warma has had problems with food safety in the past, sometimes on a scale of hundreds of students, but it's important to sift the fact from the fiction.