Scholars and policy makers have recommended public procurement policies as mechanisms for providing safe and healthy food to schools and local consumers. It has also be suggested that school feeding programs could be an interesting market for local producers, especially small scale farmers. Regardless of the potential, there are obstacles to putting these policies in place and making them work, such as transactions costs for suppliers, the issue of the food preferences of pupils, as well the complicated governance relationships between different public bodies that deal with procurement policies.

This lecture will address some of these issues and try to evaluate the perspectives and challenges to the development of school feeding programs as a strategy for overcoming food insecurity in developing countries, as well as their potential as a strategy for local food policies.

Sergio Schneider is Professor of Sociology of Rural Development and Food Studies at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he is full professor and researcher at the Graduate Program of Sociology (PPGS) and Rural Development (PGDR). Currently, Sergio Schneider is an Academic Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Food Policy (City University London), working on the project “Towards a Sociology of Food in Brazil and Latin America” with Professor Tim Lang.

His main research topics are the sociology of food, rural development, food security, rural non-agricultural activities, family farming, territorial development and rural policies. Sergio has been working and cooperating on several international projects in Latin America (Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Argentina), Africa (Cape Verde, Mozambique and South Africa) and Europe (England, The Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, France, Spain) and as a consultant for international organisations such as FAO, IFAD, IICA, WHO, EU.