On International School Meals Day, WFO highlights how stronger links between school meal programmes and local agriculture can improve children’s nutrition while creating stable opportunities for farmers and strengthening local food systems.

School meal programmes play a crucial role in the nutrition and well-being of children and adolescents. Across the world, they provide daily meals to millions of students, going far beyond addressing classroom hunger and serving as instruments for health, learning, and social equity.

Beyond these benefits, school meal programmes can also strengthen local food systems and rural economies.

On the occasion of International School Meals Day (12 March), the World Farmers’ Organisation (WFO) released its Position on School Meal Programmes, adding the farmers’ perspective to the global discussion on school feeding and outlining a farmer-led path to food and nutrition security.

Beyond the Plate: A Holistic Intersection

School meals represent one of the most effective intersections between agriculture, nutrition, and education to food consumption. When these programmes are designed with local sourcing in mind, they do more than fight hunger; they trigger a powerful ripple effect. For the student, it means fresh, diverse, and locally relevant food that fuels cognitive development and teaches the value of seasonality. For the farmer, it provides something even more valuable than a sale: a stable, predictable market and a fair economic return that allows rural economies to thrive and encourages the next generation of women and young farmers to stay on the land. For the environment, sourcing locally reduces transport distances and promotes sustainable, seasonal food production.

Several countries have already implemented approaches that connect school meal systems with agricultural production. In Brazil, the National School Feeding Programme (PNAE) mandates that part of the food used in school meals be sourced directly from family farmers. In India, the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, one of the largest school feeding initiatives in the world, reaching 118 million children, proves that large-scale demand can coexist with rural support. In Finland, school meals are not just food, but a “pedagogical tool” to teach food culture and manners to over 800,000 students daily.

Bridging the Gap: Challenges and the Way Forward

Despite this potential, the journey from the field to the classroom is often hindered by systemic barriers. Too many farmers are excluded by over-centralised procurement systems and the dominance of intermediaries, who reduce transparency and producer profits. Bureaucratic delays and late payments further undermine the trust and cash flow of small-scale farmers, while weak logistics and storage capacity limit local farms’ ability to provide fresh, high-quality products year-round.

To overcome this, the WFO calls for institutionalising local procurement quotas, simplifying systems through digital platforms that connect schools directly to cooperatives, and prioritising procurement from women and young farmers to ensure the future of rural communities.

Connecting farms to classrooms nourishes children today while empowering the farmers and communities that will sustain them tomorrow, contributing to truly resilient, inclusive, and sustainable food systems, particularly in the face of growing climate-related challenges affecting agriculture and food production.

Read the full WFO Position on School Meal Programmes