Government defines strategy for small producers and MSMEs to be suppliers of school meals

Asuncion, IP Agency.- The Government of Paraguay, through the National Council for School Feeding (Conae), approved the mechanisms for the effective connection of family agriculture and small businesses to the “Zero Hunger in Schools” feeding program, so that they can be suppliers of the firms awarded contracts in the tenders.

Among other actions, this strategy includes the implementation of comprehensive business meetings, which are meetings organized to facilitate interaction between family agriculture producers and MSMEs with supplier companies awarded the contract to provide school meals.

In this regard, CONAE announced that the first of these business meetings will be held soon, in order to effectively link small producers with the companies that will provide the service.

This strategy is considered of utmost importance to ensure the provision of inputs for breakfast and snack services, school lunch and dinner of PAE-H0, through the production of fresh and quality products at the territorial level, generating local labor for family agriculture and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

The objective of this strategy is to comply with the acquisition of goods and services, with at least 5% of contracts to MSMEs and 10% to family agriculture, in accordance with the amounts of the contracts awarded within the “Zero Hunger” program.

Conae recommends the use of this strategy to the Ministries of Industry and Commerce and Agriculture and Livestock, and to the National Directorate of Public Procurement, responsible for different stages within the execution of the program.

The document defining the strategy was approved by Minister Tadeo Rojas, president of the National School Feeding Council.

The School Feeding Program “Zero Hunger in Our Schools” aims to guarantee the equitable universalization of school feeding to students enrolled in educational institutions in the public or subsidized private sector, at different educational levels.