Thai School Lunch Initiative

It started in two schools in Chiang Mai Province in Northern Thailand where the local administration, Jae Dee Mae Krua Municipality, mandated the implementation of a green procurement policy. School children, teachers, parents, nutritionists, local cooks, smallholder farmers, and grocery store owners were brought together in the Jae Dee Mae Krua’s School Lunch Initiative to develop meals for healthy and eco-friendly diets – starting from organic farmers’ fields and leading all the way to the children’s plates at lunchtime.

But there is much more to it. “With our educational project, we are targeting the youngest members of our community,” says teacher Sukanya Thongtha who is leading this initiative. “With our knowledge, we are laying the foundations for awareness on sustainable, healthy and safe diets in our community. After all, the children are our future.” In the long term, WWF has set out to make entire value chains and markets in the food sector more sustainable, working closely together with the local communities to make this happen.

For now, the focus of this initiative is on the children to receive tasty and healthy lunches every day at the project schools – good for the children, but also for the environment. School cooks specially trained in the initiative, such as Nongyao Saensuwan, only use organic ingredients from the region. “I plan the meals for each month together with the school management and a nutritionist. I use a lot of vegetables, fruits and rice from sustainable, organic farms in the region that don’t use any chemicals.” In line with FFT’s holistic approach this means: instead of sourcing from conventional agriculture, creating healthy food from sustainable sources, preserving the environment and biodiversity while improving children’s nutrition at an essential stage of their development.

There are currently 265 school children benefitting from this initiative and, indirectly, their parents are too. It works this way: nutritionists provide courses to the teachers, who then pass on their gained knowledge about healthy, organic diets to the students in a playful way during lessons. In special educational vegetable planting lessons, the children learned how to grow their own fresh vegetables in a nature-positive way, without artificial fertilizers or pesticides. And the also got to know the benefits of vegetables to their health, as stepping stones to a high-quality and nutrient-rich diet. In class, Sukanya Thongtha also teaches how to prepare food in a way that preserves nutrients. For example, that blanching or steaming vegetables retains their natural nutrients more than stir-frying. The children are encouraged to take home the message and implement it together with their parents. “When I go to the market with my son, he explains to me which vegetables we should buy,” says Jintana Pridarat, the mother of little Phuwanan (Jeans) from Jae Dee Mae Krua Kindergarden. “He tells me what dishes they ate at school, and which vegetables were in it.” She believes, the school lunch initiative is a brilliant first step in educating the next generation. “They support children’s development and health by giving them knowledge about local food and encouraging them to appreciate a broader range of ingredients”, says Jintana Pridarat.

The FFT initiative supports the entire value chain, starting from the farmers and local communities, for the benefit of the people and the environment. Any fresh, organic fruits and vegetables that remain in the school garden are sold in the community or to local grocery stores and vendors. That way, the school generates income to buy additional ingredients for the school meals from local smallholders that the school garden does not provide itself, such as herbs (different kinds of basil), tomatoes, Thai eggplant, and others. The WWF project also supports organic farmers to produce seedlings and seeds for the school garden or supply ingredients to the school kitchen, which in turn generates income in the community.