Local Produce for School Lunches: Iwate Prefecture's Initiatives

Iwate Prefecture has been promoting the use of locally-produced food, especially for the ingredients used in local school lunches in 188 schools, with a total 117,609 students. The proportion of locally-produced food in school lunches reached 50.1 percent for the April-September period in 2002. The result far exceeds the initial target of over 30 percent for each school, based on guidelines formulated in November 2001to expand the use of prefectural products for school lunches, and reveals steady progress being made in efforts across the prefecture.

By ingredients, 100 percent of milk was produced within the prefecture, followed by rice, at nearly 100 percent, and tofu (soybean curd), at 95 percent. The ratios for Iwate-sourced livestock products were also high: beef at 83 percent, pork at 80 percent, chicken at 71 percent, and eggs at 72 percent. On the other hand, ratios for vegetables and fruits were low, at 25 and 6 percent, respectively. In 1999, before this school lunch campaign began, the rates for vegetables were 21 percent, and for fruit, 19 percent. The low rates can be attributed to the fact that the figures only referred to the first half of the school year (which starts in April), when mostly summer vegetables are used--vegetables that can be grown locally.

As a new initiative, bread made with a 30 percent blend of Nanbu wheat from the prefecture was served on the tables of all schools across the prefecture in the 2002 school year. This will consume 219.2 tonnes or 3.3 percent of the locally-produced Nanbu wheat annually.

Some cities in Iwate are making other efforts to boost the use of local products: The city of Morioka engages in a hometown school lunch project that promotes and supports a local producers' association to supply school lunch foodstuffs. Hanamaki allocates certain days to serve millet and seasonal treats for school lunches. In Mizusawa, school nutritionists take study tours of local farms, and beef producers also visit local schools. The city also prints posters of a map showing where local agricultural products are grown, and distributes them to elementary schools. It also supports the growing of winter vegetables by using paddy rice seedling nursery facilities, and sets up gardens in elementary schools to provide hands-on experience for students.



Posted: 2003/05/10 10:33:33 AM
Japanese version