Dairy producers await the launch of Zero Hunger to provide supplies to schools

Asunción, IP Agency.- The president of the Chamber of Dairy Industries, Erno Becker, highlighted the Government’s initiative to include school breakfast and snacks within the school feeding project “Zero Hunger in Schools.”

He noted that the first tenders are awaited, scheduled for the month of June. The sector has the capacity to supply the demand, Becker said.

Dairy industries provided more than 80% of the national student body with a glass of milk. «Last year we barely covered 44% because that is what we have placed. It depended on the governorates and if a governorate was left alone, it would not be sold,” he said in an interview with Paraguay TV from the United Colonies.

He highlighted the opening of President Santiago Peña and his Chief of Staff, Lea Giménez, with the producers, who explained the scope of the project and the inclusion of milk consumption in the tenders to expand the scope of school feeding.

The sector can provide whole and enriched milk, the latter aimed at making up for the food deficit in rural areas, Becker said.

Zero Hunger

The “Zero Hunger in Schools” program establishes the creation of a National School Feeding Council and Fund (CONAE and FONAE), from where tenders will be made to ensure school feeding for 1,500,000 students and guarantee its coverage throughout the country.

President Santiago Peña stated that this program “It will be the largest program to transfer resources to small producers in the history of Paraguay”by allowing their participation in the objective of guaranteeing food for 1,500,000 students throughout the country 180 days of the school year.

In the first stage, schools in 75 districts will be prioritizeda list that includes the 22 where the Government will install social protection tables to improve poverty rates, plus the entire Central department, that of Presidente Hayes, and schools in the capital.