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It is expected that a proposal to change school food rations will be made in the coming months throughout the country
PORTOVIEJO
Dozens of children and adolescents from 94 educational establishments in nine urban parishes of Portoviejo received a kit with 12 fruits, mandarins and oranges, within the framework of the pilot plan for the delivery of school meals that will replace the traditional one, which consisted of milk and granola bars.
The initiative is framed in the Organic Law of School Feeding approved in 2019 and regulated in 2020. This is established in article 6, literal B, “declare as a national priority the policy and strategy of the right to food and healthy nutrition and adequate food sovereignty and security for girls, boys and adolescents, as well as guaranteeing the mechanisms for its enforceability ”.
The oranges and mandarins delivered were acquired thanks to agreements between the Provincial Council of Manabí (CPM), Municipality of Portoviejo and under the supervision of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), whose representative in Ecuador, Agustín Zimmermann, described as positive the cooperation action between local and ministerial entities, mainly Education and Agriculture, for supporting this healthy food system in favor of children in the country, which registers one in four children with malnutrition.
A pilot plan will start in Portoviejo that changes the school feeding model for students in the country
“This Food Law says in one of its articles that 30% of the School Feeding Program must be supplied from family and peasant agriculture, and this is not happening today, and what we are doing with the support of the CPM and the Municipality of Portoviejo is that we are incorporating fruits from the area, from the Chone canton, mandarins and oranges, in a school feeding program to 94 school educational establishments with a scope for 40,000 children ”, declared Zimmermann.
The FAO official said that they hope that this plan will be extended to the entire country as soon as possible, and stressed that the most essential thing will be to ensure the safety of these fresh foods.
The 94 educational establishments are located in the urban parishes of 12 de Marzo, Andrés de Vera, Colón, Picoazá, Portoviejo, San Pablo, Francisco Pacheco and 18 de Octubre, in Portoviejo.
“We are providing 480,000 fresh fruits, each kit with 12 units of fresh fruit,” said Leonardo Orlando, prefect of Manabí. (I)
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