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Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries

in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication

The Fisheries and Aquaculture and the Food and Nutrition Divisions at FAO join forces to incorporate fish into home-grown school feeding programmes

10/10/2022

© Nelson Avdalov

The burden of hunger and malnutrition, on school-aged children and adolescents are major constraints in achieving global food security and nutrition. Home-grown school feeding (HGSF) is a model designed to provide school-aged children and adolescents in schools with safe, diverse, and nutritious food, sourced locally from smallholders. HGSF has the potential to contribute to the nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents, and maximize sustainable benefits on prices, opportunities for commercialization, market linkages, and access to productive assets for smallholders and other stakeholders.

Based on a previous initiative implemented in 2020, to include fish into HGSF in Honduras, Angola, and Nicaragua, the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division and the Food and Nutrition Division of FAO are developing a toolkit that systematizes the previous experience of introducing fish from local fisherfolk into HGSF. The toolkit is a comprehensive technical package for a rapid assessment of the situation and the identification of constraints and opportunities presents to include fish into HGSF. Thereby, the toolkit is tailoring fish value chains for supplying fish to school feeding. 

The incorporation of fish into HGSF is an innovative proposal to increase and diversify the nutrient content of the meals served at school. It contributes to enhancing post-harvest, processing, storage, and market opportunities for local fisherfolks by connecting their end-products to school demand.

Additionally, sourcing fish from local fisherfolk addresses several goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. More specifically, it contributes to SDG2 (Zero Hunger), but also advocates for SDG5 (Gender Equality) by supporting local women fisherfolk, using gender transformative interventions and a gender-sensitive approach. Finally, by raising awareness of good practices and the reduction of food loss and waste, the toolkit promotes SDG12 (Responsible consumption and production). Further information about these approaches can be found through FAO e-learning courses on Developing gender-sensitive value chains and Sustainable Food Value Chains for Nutrition. 

The approach developed through the toolkit is expected to support the coordination of actions between the fishery sector, HGSF actors, and nutrition actors towards sustainably incorporating fish from local fisherfolk into HGSF. The approach calls for a strong understanding of food systems and environments, the challenges faced by local fisherfolks, as well as of the nutritional needs of school-aged children and adolescents, and their consumption behavior and preferences. In other words, it supports local fisherfolks to adjust their production system to meet the quantity (volume) and quality (safety and nutrition) requirements of HGSF. Furthermore, the incorporation of fish into HGSF enhances the consumption of nutritious by-products of fish and under-utilized species by school-aged children and adolescents, and by extension to the local communities. Thereafter it reduces food loss and waste, reduces the over-exploitation of natural resources, and ensures sustainability.

To learn more about the importance of integrating fish from small-scale producers in school feeding programs, see these publications:

For more information contact Andrea Polo Galante (ESN),  Ahern Molly Brynne (NFIMF), Jogeir Toppe (NFIMF), and Mihasina Harinaivo Andrianarimanana (ESN)- [email protected]  

For more information about HGSF, check out FAO and WFP e-learning courses on Home-grown school feeding