Tropentag, September 16 - 18, 2026, Göttingen "Towards multi-functional agro-ecosystems promoting climate-resilient futures"

Governance challenges of school meals programmes as a tool for family farming development: A study case from three Brazilian municipalities

¹University of Hohenheim, Inst. of Agric. Sci. in the Tropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute), Germany
²Federal University of Goiás, Agribusiness, Brazil

Abstract

Public food procurement has emerged as a strategic instrument for food system transformation, with school meal programmes its largest global expression. Brazil's school feeding programme (PNAE) is a reference for its scale and universality, and since 2009 for linking nutritional quality, origin and production methods within its procurement criteria. While PNAE's effects on dietary quality and farm income are well documented, fewer studies address the governance processes mediating its performance at the municipal level, particularly under low institutional capacity. This paper examines these challenges in three small, low-income, semi-arid municipalities of the Brazilian Cerrado combining semi-structured interviews, farm economics data and the Process Net-Map tool with farmer-suppliers, public officers (agriculture, education, social action, general management), local council members and third-sector representatives. Preliminary findings reveal a marked gap between formal compliance and effective implementation. On the supply side, farmers struggled to deliver contracted volumes due to limited logistics infrastructure, the absence of staggered production planning, production losses to pests and climate events, and quality criteria insufficiently specified at contracting. On the demand side, menus were poorly adapted to local productive capacities, purchase schedules failed to support farm-level planning, payments were systematically delayed, and orders were frequently redirected to large lower-cost suppliers to generate budget savings. Although contracting involved coordinated planning between education and agriculture departments with farmers and cooperatives participation, execution was subject to recurrent deviations and weak oversight, with local management councils captured by government actors and limited scrutiny of failures originating in procurement processes. PNAE provides meaningful income for participating farmers, but its territorial reach is limited by the scale of school procurement. Consolidating it with other public food procurement (hospitals, administrative centers, institutional events) could broaden participation, yet volume alone is insufficient: tenders fall short of fully covering the budgeted procurement volume, revealing a binding supply-side constraint. Expanding procurement must be paired with locally tailored policies to strengthen productive capacity—credit, technical assistance, water access and logistics—since national instruments are too fragmented for low-capacity territories. To catalyse its potential, the PNAE must be better articulated with local actors who can support local productive capacities expansion and strengthen oversight bodies.

Keywords: Brazil, family farming, governance, public food procurement, school feeding

Contact Address: Erich Friol Gimenes, University of Hohenheim, Social and Institutional Change in Agricultural Development, Rua dom lucas obes 35, 04212-020 São paulo, Brazil, e-mail: erich.friolgimenesuni-hohenheim.de