School food at home: Brazil’s national school food programme (PNAE) during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have hindered students’ food access, particularly low-income students who rely on schools for their primary daily meals. School food programmes have adapted to pandemic conditions by providing school food at home (SF@H). We conceptually explore the changing geographies of school food during the pandemic by examining adaptations by Brazil’s national school food programme (PNAE) and then comparing it to regular school food provision. Our research is informed by 43 interviews with public officials and civil society representatives from all regions of Brazil, ranging from high-level technocrats to frontline responders engaged with school food. Rapid response through national school food policy allowed schools to provide food at home as a pandemic relief effort by creating novel alternative food geographies that keep schools at the heart of agri-food systems. SF@H provide local family farmers with an alternative commercialisation channel to those compromised because of social distancing measures. SF@H also provided students – and, for the first time, their families – with access to food during home-based learning. While this has been important, we find that even when the state provides SF@H as a pandemic relief measure, low-income families are subject to additional burdens that accentuate the inequalities previously ameliorated at schools.