“The government is a really big buyer, so [it] can use the strength to propose new and necessary patterns toward healthier and more sustainable parameters. Especially when we are talking about children and fundamental guarantees such as food security, education, health. I have no doubt that procurement is important when we work to implement our vision.”
-Letícia Baird

The second episode of The Power of the Public Plate podcast is an interview with Letícia Baird, a public prosecutor working in Bahia, Brazil, and leader of the region’s Sustainable Food Programme.

The Sustainable Food Programme, which first started in 2018 and involves 150 schools in 4 cities, promotes the school feeding public policy of Bahia by serving traditional, mostly wholemeal and plant-based food produced by local smallholder farmers. With this initiative, the Ministério Público is able to ensure social inclusion, education and training on food production and consumption, as well as preserving traditional food and the environment.

Letícia Baird, now leading the Sustainable Food Programme, has been working as a public prosecutor in low socio-economic areas of Bahia, Brazil for over ten years. The programme and its achievements have been presented at international scientific conferences such as The 2019 Planetary Health Annual Meeting at Stanford University, LEAP Conference 2019 (Livestock, Environment and People) at Oxford University, at the 8th World Sustainability Forum and, also, this year, at the affiliated session: “Nutrition for growth and cohesion”, during the United Nations Pre-Summit.

The Power of the Public Plate, brought to you by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and the UN One Planet Network, is a collection of interviews on how public authorities from around the world leverage procurement to positively impact the food value chain, to ultimately contribute to sustainable food systems. Each week new guests from different parts of the world join us to explore their idea of sustainable food procurement, so make sure to tune in for all the episodes!

Find out more about Bahia’s Sustainable School Programme here.

You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast and One Planet Network YouTube or ICLEI YouTube.

To find out more about us, visit our websites:
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
One Planet Network 

Or connect with us on Twitter:
@ICLEI_procure
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