Agroecology on the School Food Menu, the Seeds of a Sustainable Transition

In Senegal, food insecurity among children is a real obstacle to school attendance. To counter this, school policies in the most vulnerable areas, such as the Fatick Region, have integrated school canteens. Implemented in at least 11% of Senegal’s elementary schools, these canteens provide pupils with two meals a day. In the Fatick region, the canteens are supplied with local products such as millet, the main staple cereal, and milk. In this way, they provide a real lever for promoting local products and shortening supply chains. In addition to shortening commercial circuits with school canteens, Fatick’s farmers and agropastoralists are already in the agro-ecological transition. In fact, they have co-created a local dynamic for agro-ecological transition (DyTAEL), affiliated to a national multi-actor movement. The DyTAEL has drawn up a vision for an agroecological Fatick by 2035. This ambition has been translated into a multi-year action plan. To operationalize the action plan, DyTAEL has been selected as an Agroecological Living Landscape to support the implementation and co-development of profitable agroecological business models that are sensitive to the principles of the circular economy and the development of local food systems. To this end, the B-act_Tool is used to assess the level of alignment with agroecologies_HPLE principles of those business models. In this respect, value chain mapping and analysis has identified and consolidated links between school canteens and producers. The links are synergistic and mutually beneficial, with positive externalities for the region. For the canteens, supply is stabilised with healthy products. As for producers, they have a secure market, encouraging their efforts to make the transition to agro-ecology. In its ambition to develop an agroecological territory, DyTAEL has the opportunity to introduce agroecology into schools, and to see children already aware of the principles and benefits of agroecology at elementary level