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Category: Procurement Programs

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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.

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One of the strategies used to inject nutrition into school meals is to incorporate local food into the menus. Local food has a different definition depending on the application - for some, 'local' meas that it comes from within the country, others withing the region, others within a specific range (for example, I worked for a store where 'local' meant a radius of 30 miles).

Local buying enables producers to secure a predictable demand for their products and can, in some cases, allow farmers to diversify what they grow: if schools demand an array of fruits and vegetables and buy that produce locally, this can change how agriculture is conducted in the area.

Valencia et al. (2019) drew a flow chart to describe how local buying can impact markets, households, agriculture, and resilience to climate change:

There are a great many ways to put a concept like this into effect; not only does the definition of 'local' need to be clearly defined, but the roles of different actors should also be clearly defined. What, for example, is the role of the central government? What social groups (women's groups, agricultural cooperatives) should bear some of the responsibility? Do farmers have direct contact with the schools?

Local buying for school meals is therefore a plastic model that can be shaped to fit the unique circumstances of each country or region in which it is implemented. Bundy et al (2012) illustrates this:

This diagram shows only three out of scores of examples - and is distilled down to the most fundamental elements - but it does show the heterogeneity and flexibility in these programs.

These initiatives are challenging to implement because there are high levels of uncertainty - whether farmers can supply the demand, whether the food will be safe, et cetera - on the other hand, highly centralized programs in which food is bought from non-local sources can be brittle but have assurances as to the amount provided and the overall safety of the products.

In some cases, centralized programs work better - in places where, for example, the agriculture of the zone can only support household use - and in others, decentralized programs with local buying are better. It seems to me that most of the time, a mixture of the two works best: local buying for a portion of the food and deliveries 'from away' for the rest. As with anything, the answer isn't simple.

P.S. Lest you think that local procurement is only a feature in low-income countries, here is an example from my home state of Maine.

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The accepted definition of food security was established in 1996 at the World Food Summit: "Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life." (Source: FAO, "An Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food Security.")

The part of this definition that I want to stress is that of food preferences - that people be given the food that they are familiar with and would choose of their own volition.

For Peru and Qali Warma, this means that the food provided has to be palatable enough for children to actually eat it.

So yes, the pickiness of young children does have to be entertained, to some extent. However, there are other considerations: there's a sizable population in Peru that cannot eat or drink dairy, a major problem considering how much milk is incorporated into Qali Warma. The indigenous peoples of the Amazon are lactose intolerant, meaning that for them, Qali Warma's food is not safe, nor is it aligned with their dietary needs or food preferences. And yet, the program spends a lot of money sending milk to the Amazon; I've been told stories of deliveries of milk being left on the side of a river to spoil, as no one wanted to collect it, stories of food meant for schools being fed to pigs and chickens.

Street art in the city of Puerto Maldonado, Peru that I took several years ago.

It's important to remember that some children aren't being difficult because they've never liked milk; some children have to make the decision to refuse the food provided to them (and potentially stay hungry at school).

It's also important to remember that Qali Warma is doing the best that it can - and is striving to do better.

In the following posts, I will show how different programs could better contribute to food security, adapting to local food practices.

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Peru has several food procurement programs that are meant to keep the baseline of poverty at an acceptable minimum; the one in charge of school meals is called Qali Warma (which translates to 'strong child' from the Quechua language). Qali Warma provides meals to schoolchildren in kindergartens and primary schools throughout Peru, and in the Amazon, all children in public schools receive meals.

This program is based around predetermined menus, which have been formulated by nutritionists; everyone on a national level prepares more or less the same meals. These meals often revolve around a milky drink with cereals in it (such as oatmeal, maca, or quinoa), bread, and crackers/cookies. There aren't many vegetables or fruits incorporated into the program, and much of the food has a very long shelf life; additionally, in some places, the milk is powdered or canned milk, which some students do not enjoy - and you can't blame them, as anyone who has had powdered milk will attest.

Common supplies for the preparation of school breakfasts.

I can find flaws in Qali Warma - but I remind myself that the presence of the program is something that can be built upon, and that not having Qali Warma could have truly negative repercussions. However, the government strives to improve its program as well as it can, by working to ensure that the food arrives at the schools safely (without spoiling), and by doing what it can to promote healthy food. For example, there was a directive in 2015 to drastically increase the amount of quinoa in the program, by 85 percent.

For more information on this program, there is a reader-friendly summary of the program and a case study in this report by Health Poverty Action.