What’s in a farm-to-school menu?

Some 10,000 students in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) can expect a hearty meal every day of the week during the new school year under the local government’s Farm-to-School Meals Program (FSMP) supported by the Japan government and World Food Program (WFP).

The FSMP menu featuring traditional dishes such as tinolang manok, ginataang kalabasa and tinolang isda not only aims to fight hunger among students from poor families but also strengthen linkages between local smallholder farmers and schools by letting the former participate in the school feeding supply chain.  

The FSMP meals will have as ingredients locally-harvested vegetables, chicken and fish.

During the launching and presentation of the FSMP project on 23 July, Nihei Daisuke, the Minister for Economic Affairs of the Embassy of Japan in the Philippines, showed a table of the FSMP menu for each month.

For the first week, the daily dishes are ginataang munggo, tinolang manok, ginisang isda at gulay, sabaw na isda and ginataang isda. 

The next week will see the students eating langka na may isda, ginataang kalabasa, afritadang manok, ginataang manok and tinolang isda. 

For Week 3, the menu consists of ginataang munggo, gulay at dilis, tinolang manok, tinolang isda, and sari-saring gulay. 

Week 4 dishes are tuna at gabi, manok at munggo, ginataang manok, sari-saring gulay at manok, and gulay at isda. 

Daisuke emphasized the importance of ensuring that school children receive adequate nutrition to facilitate their learning, growth and achievement. He also highlighted the project’s beneficial effects on the region’s food security and economy, underscoring its advantages for local communities and farmers.

Also gracing the occasion were WFP Philippines Deputy Country Director Dipayan Bhattacharyya and BARMM officials led by Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform Mohammad S. Yacob, Minister of Basic, Higher and Technical Education Mohagher lqbal, and Minister of Health Dr. Kadil Sinolinding.

The government of Japan will contribute approximately $5 million (about P292.6 million) to the three-year FSMP project, which the WFP will carry out to support agricultural livelihoods, boost nutrition and food security, and improve education in BARMM. Hazel Ann Era