Public food procurement policies and initiatives designed to use government purchasing power and regular demand for food have gained much global attention in the last decade

Os pequenos agricultores (ou agricultores familiares) são os principais responsáveis pela produção de alimentos em grande parte dos países em desenvolvimento. No entanto, a capacidade de acesso ao mercado é geralmente limitada, representando um dos principais obstáculos para a melhoria de seus modos de vida. Neste contexto, intervenções estatais que visam aumentar a demanda por produtos da agricultura familiar por meio de compras públicas de alimentos representam um importante instrumento para promover o acesso destes produtores ao mercado. Ao mesmo tempo, tais intervenções podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento e transformação dos sistemas locais de fornecimento de alimentos. As organizações de pequenos produtores, na qualidade de instrumento de ações coletivas, podem desempenhar um papel importante nesse processo. Esse estudo se baseia na experiência brasileira do Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar (PNAE) e do Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos (PAA), assim como na iniciativa Compras para Progresso (P4P) do Programa Mundial de Alimentos das Nações Unidas. Ele tem como objetivo explorar o papel dos programas institucionais de compras públicas de alimentos e das organizações de produtores na promoção de oportunidades de comercialização para pequenos produtores e como catalisadores para a transformação de sistemas locais de fornecimento de alimentos da agricultura familiar.

This article seeks to identify the core dimensions of and the challenges to innovative school food reforms. Aiming to frame the discussion, the article examines three school feeding strategies: the World Food Programme’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) programme, the Brazilian School Feeding Program, and the European Public Food Procurement system. The first part conceptually defines what is meant by innovative forms of school food procurement, especially regarding its underlying values. It shows that school food reforms go beyond improving access to food, enhancing educational outputs and supporting economic development goals. School feeding holds a transformative potential, insofar as institutional purchases become organized and develop in line with the goals of sustainable development, well-being and social justice. In the second part, we present contemporary examples of good school feeding practices, whose elements might, or might not, be pertinent in particular cases. There are two main lessons emerging from our research. First, policy reform and governmental will are not enough, if the institutional and legal frameworks for operationalizing new school feeding programs are not adjusted to local conditions. Second, we argue that procurement policies or city food strategies can open spaces of manoeuvre within fiscal, material and governance constraints, although the role of social actors is essential and constructive for the success of nesting policy innovations

There is a growing attention from policy makers, development partners and donors on the promotion of environmental sustainability through school feeding programmes in Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC) contexts (Pastorino et al., 2023;SMC, 2023;Rockefeller foundation, 2025). School feeding programmes currently reach approximately 466 million children daily and represent an estimated investment of US$84 billion (WFP, 2025), making them a powerful lever for promoting environmental-alongside social and economic-sustainability outcomes and promoting increased access to healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Illustrative of this growing interest are emerging concepts and initiatives such as "Regenerative" (Rockefeller Foundation, 2025) and "Planet-Friendly" (Pastorino et al., 2023) school meal programmes.This increased focus builds on previous work that recognizes that, according to choices related to what food to procure, from who, and from what type of production practices, school food procurementas a key example of public food procurementcan serve as an strategic tool to trigger food systems transformation and promote multiple social (including nutrition), economic and environmental objectives, according to countries policies and national priorities (Swensson andTartanac, 2020, FAO et al, 2021;Swensson et al 2021a;2021b).This approach is further supported by existing evidence showing that the strategic use of public food procurement has the potential to contribute to government efforts on climate change mitigation (Cerutti et al., 2018;Kluczkovski et al., 2022), biodiversity conservation (Borelli et al., 2021;Beltrame et al., 2021;Valencia et al., 2019;2021), deforestation (Falvo and Muscaritoli, 2024) and adoption of production practices with no use of synthetic fertilisers or pesticides, such as organic and agro-ecological ones (Mikkelsen and Madsen, 2021;Lindström et al, 2020Sørensen et al., 2015;2016;Valencia et al., 2019).It is also consistent with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals which recognizes public procurement as a lever for more sustainable production and consumption patterns (Target 12.7). Moreover, it resonates with the broader global discourse (UNEP, 2021; 2022) and the academic literature on sustainable and green public procurement (Ortega et al, 2024), which highlights the potential of public procurement across different sectors to advance environmental sustainability outcomes.Although the link between school feeding, public procurement, and environmental sustainability is not new, this connection has received the most policy and scholarly attention in High-Income Countries (HICs), particularly in Europe, where much of the literature is concentrated (Molin et al., 2021).In contrast, school feeding and related food procurement policies in Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)and the associated literature -have traditionally prioritized social and economic objectives, such strengthening linkages with local agricultural production and supporting smallholder producers (Stoffel et al., 2019;Molin et al., 2021FAO, 2025;GCNF, 2025). Existing research draws attention to a persistent disconnecting between school food procurement initiatives and the broader sustainable public procurement debate in these country contexts, emphasizing the need to bridge this gap (Swensson, 2020;Swensson et al., 2021a).With environmental issues increasingly at the forefront of national agendas in LMIC countries, school feeding and food procurement present a valuable opportunity to support countries in meeting both national and international environmental sustainability commitments. Nevertheless, there is still limited discussionparticularly from a LMIC perspectiveon the potential challenges to advancing this agenda, especially those linked to public procurement mechanisms These include bottlenecks related to (i) defining environmental sustainability for food (Poore and Nemecek, 2018;Molin et al., 2021;Deconinck et al., 2023).; (ii) operationalizing environmental sustainability objectives through the procurement processes (Treager et al.,2022;WHO, 2022;Shebesta and Casado, 2024); and (iii) and managing trade-offs (Smith et al, 2016;Kanter et al., 2018;Stoffel et al.,2019;Gasonato et al., 2024;Harlapp, 2025).While these challenges are not exclusive to food procurement and may be more commonly addressed in other sectoral sustainable public procurement initiatives, they are rarely examined in the school feeding literature. Addressing these bottlenecks is crucial for advancing the strategic use of school feeding and school food procurement to promote environmental sustainability, particularly from a policymaking perspective. From an academic standpoint, such analysis is equally important for identifying knowledge gaps and highlighting areas in need of further research. This paper seeks to contribute to this effort by offering the school feeding literature a critical reflection on these procurement-related challenges. While school food serves as the central case examined, the insights generated are applicable to broader public food procurement contexts.Bottlenecks for Promoting Environmental Sustainability through School Food ProcurementSustainability is a wide and complex concept. While there is a wide consensus that school food should be sustainable, the lack of consensus on what exactly 'environmentally sustainable food' is poses important challenges to the regulation and implementation of this policy objective through school food procurement (Poore and Nemecek, 2018;Molin et al., 2021;Deconinck et al., 2023).One important starting point is that environmental sustainability encompasses various dimensions and interconnected pathways. These pathways include energy use; land use and land-use change; biodiversity loss; production and use of fertilisers and pesticides; water use and water pollution; emissions of pollutants from farming and agricultural activities; and...

Institutional food procurement programmes (IFPP) have been receiving increasing attention from the literature, policy makers and development agencies...