SCHOOLS NOURISH BIODIVERSITY
Mainstreaming Agrobiodiversity in School Meals to Catalyze Food Systems Transformation School feeding programmes reach over 450 million children globally, making them one of the largest public food system interventions and a primary tool for addressing child hunger and poverty. Well-designed school meal programmes can further catalyze broader food systems change by providing children with healthy, equitable meals produced sustainably, protecting biodiversity, and minimizing environmental impact. A key, underutilized lever for achieving such “planet-friendly” meals is agrobiodiversity. Agrobiodiversity is the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms that are used directly or indirectly for food and agriculture, including crops, livestock, forestry and fisheries. Integrating diverse, locally adapted foods into school menus can improve nutrition, support resilient farms and livelihoods, and contribute to environmental sustainability.
The Biodiversity–Food Systems Challenge Current food systems rely on just 12 plant and animal species for 75% of global food needs, while thousands of traditional crops disappear from fields and plates. This dramatic diet simplification threatens both human nutrition and local ecosystem resilience. Climate change compounds these challenges by reducing crop yields and nutritional quality of staple grains, with the greatest risks facing the world’s most vulnerable populations. Yet the large diversity of indigenous and traditional food species and varieties, typically nutrient-rich, locally adapted, and climate resilient, remain largely disregarded by current agricultural and food systems.
BIODIVERSITY ENTRY POINTS Species diversity: Planet-friendly school meals interventions focus largely on enhancing species and varietal diversity through strategic integration of neglected and underutilized indigenous food into institutional food systems. Enhancing agrobiodiversity in local farms and landscapes simultaneously delivers more stable yields, healthier soils, reduced pollution, and greater resilience while supplying the varied foods needed for healthy, culturally appropriate school meals.
FOOD SYSTEM ENTRY POINTS
y Policy and Governance: Existing policy frameworks, for example public procurement
SUSTLIVES/Hyacinthe Combary, taken from https://alliancebioversityciat. org/stories/school-meals-nutrition-agrobiodiversity-africa
policies, food security policies, and decentralized governance systemts, are leveraged to drive change at different scales (e.g., public procurement policies, food security policies or decentralized governance systems). y Shifting diets: Experiential education such as school gardens, combines cultural rehabilitation of traditional foods, food preparation skills, and social learning that transform the negative perception of indigenous foods, such as leafy greens once dismissed as “weeds” or poor people’s food, into valued nutritious options. y Social organization: Schools serve as convening spaces for advancing the well-being and futures of the most vulnerable such as children and farmers. They can foster discussions on food system transformation, generating practical, tangible impacts locally while contributing to changes in food systems.
KEY TERMS Agrobiodiversity: The variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms that are used directly or indirectly for food and agriculture, including crops, livestock, forestry and fisheries.
School Meals Coalition (SMC): A network of governments and partners promoting universal access to healthy, sustainable school meals.
Learn more about school meals as catalysts for biodiversity
CIAT/Trong Chinh, , taken from https://alliancebioversityciat. org/stories/school-meals-nutrition-agrobiodiversity-africa