ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the legal framework governing public food procurement for Brazil’s National School Feeding Programme. It shows how Brazil’s institutional food procurement programmes stand as strategic and comprehensive public policies for combating hunger and poverty and promoting rural and sustainable development. The programme is funded by national government but delivery is decentralised to the level of individual municipalities and in some cases individual schools. School menus are developed by professional nutritionists based on nutritional requirements, use of raw or minimally processed foods and respecting seasonality, and local food culture. The law provides for a special procedure aimed encouraging the purchasing of food from local family farmers, with preference also for organic or agroecological food.
