The Global Food System: A Call for Transformation
The global food system is facing a crisis on multiple fronts. Over 2.6 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet, and more than 500 million are expected to be chronically undernourished by 2030. At the same time, meeting future food demand requires a 50% increase in production, yet food-system productivity is declining due to rising climate risks. Agrifood industries are contributing to biodiversity loss, land degradation, and a global water crisis, while also generating nearly one-third of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
School-meal programmes offer a promising solution to these challenges. Annual spending on school meals globally amounts to $84 billion, reaching 466 million children—$36 billion more since 2022. As world leaders gathered at the Global Summit of the School Meals Coalition in Brazil, they celebrated this progress. Countries from Canada to Indonesia are launching national programmes, creating one of the largest social safety nets in the world.
However, school meals go beyond welfare provisions. When designed effectively, they can transform entire food systems, support Sustainable Development Goal 2 (“Zero Hunger”), drive economic growth, and advance climate and environmental goals. In a new report with the World Food Programme, I argue that realising this potential requires moving beyond social policy to embed school meals in industrial strategies, with procurement serving as a key lever of change.
For decades, the dominant approach has been to fix markets only after they have failed. Governments and aid programmes often provide meals during crises without addressing the underlying incentives shaping food systems. Public procurement typically rewards low costs and risk minimisation, entrenching short-term thinking at the expense of long-term investment.
This approach has benefited large agrifood corporations, which dominate the sector with high levels of financialisation and market concentration. As a result, many children receive food that is high in calories but low in nutrition, while opportunities for local, sustainable producers remain limited.
Siloed governance exacerbates the problem. Education ministries usually oversee school meals, but existing programmes rarely connect to broader industrial strategies, agricultural policies, or climate initiatives. Billions are spent annually without serious efforts to leverage the transformative power of public investment. That is why over 150 Nobel and World Food Prize laureates have called for a “moonshot approach” to fix the global food system.
They are right, but success requires a mission-oriented approach, not just another production push. School meals should be seen as public infrastructure capable of shaping markets and stimulating innovation across the value chain. Evidence shows that returns can be substantial, ranging from $7 to $35 for every dollar invested, with benefits shared across health, education, social protection, and agriculture sectors.
The bigger opportunity lies in public procurement’s market-shaping power. Stable demand from school-meal programmes can encourage farmers and suppliers to invest in greener, healthier practices. Demand-led growth creates employment along wider value chains. According to some estimates, over 1,500 direct jobs are created for every 100,000 students fed, plus many more in farming, transportation, food preparation, and monitoring.
Meal procurement can also catalyse innovation in nutrition, regenerative agriculture, and circular-economy techniques, accelerating the growth of newer markets. Alternative proteins, such as plant-based and lab-grown options, are projected to grow to $417 billion globally by 2034.
While some countries are implementing school-meal programmes that integrate economic, health, and sustainability goals through strategic procurement, many others are falling short. To unlock the full power of school meals, governments must embed them in mission-oriented industrial strategies.
Steps for Effective School Meal Programmes
First, position school meals as drivers of innovation, sustainability, and decent work—not as costs but as investments that generate multiplier effects across health, agriculture, and local economies. Success requires a whole-of-government approach involving finance, industry, agriculture, health, and education ministries.
Second, redesign procurement and institutions. Procurement must focus on local, sustainable, and inclusive supply chains, linking school meals to family farms, SMEs, and agroecological producers. Contracts should reward outcomes like nutrition, sustainability, and economic impact, rather than just the lowest cost. They should also include conditions to align private-sector behaviour with public goals.
Third, embrace the role of market-shapers. School-meal programmes can be platforms for innovation, but only with broad stakeholder participation. For example, Sweden’s innovation agency has launched a mission to provide “tasty, healthy, and sustainable” meals to all students by 2030, collaborating with students, farmers, civil society, and politicians.
Fourth, strengthen public-sector capabilities. Mission success requires dynamic state capacity, not risk-averse compliance. Governments must empower agencies to experiment, adapt, and shape markets, rather than simply procuring services.
Lastly, pursue global cooperation. International trade and investment rules may need reform to enable food-system transformations. The G20, climate conferences, the World Bank, and the School Meals Coalition should position school meals as a powerful green-industrial-policy instrument.
School meals represent an enormous opportunity to move beyond incremental progress toward transformational change. The question is not whether we can afford to invest in school meals, but whether we can afford not to harness their full potential.
