Sustainable rural territories: Procurement for healthy school food, agroecological transition and sustainable territorial consolidation

The current model for supplying school canteens in Morocco is based on a centralized tendering system that favours large intermediary companies and high-volume farms. The result is that Morocco tends to import ingredients with low nutritional value for use in school canteens. Not only does this system tend to homogenize meals on a national scale, it also leaves behind small diversified farms, which are the driving force of local food production. This project aims to transform school food in Morocco by relying on the supply of local products from sustainable agroecological agriculture with an eye to improving the quality and regularity of school meals, while adding to the sustainability of local farming systems.

The project will scale up the system from the provincial level, where it is being tested, to the national level. It uses a participatory approach by establishing a territorial dialogue platform that promotes collective intelligence and social inclusion. The project is expected to lead to an improvement in meal quality and greater social inclusion in territorial development.

This project is part of the Catalyzing Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Procurement Systems for School Food cohort of projects that aim to catalyze the adoption and scaling-up of equitable and inclusive practices in school meal supply systems in Africa, as part of the agroecological transition of local and national food systems.