Ministry of Agriculture Unveils School Kitchen for Community Feeding Program

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security & Enterprise unveiled a school kitchen at Our Lady of Bella Vista School in Toledo District. Today, a public private partnership agreement was signed between the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Education and Fyffes for a community feeding program in Bella Vista Primary School. Recent Ministry of Health data from 2020 reveals that 330 children in Bella Vista and Red Bank are being monitored case by case for stunted and underweight conditions. The minister of Agriculture Food Security & Enterprise, Jose Abelardo Mai spoke to Love News about the role for the ministry of agriculture in the feeding program project. 

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture: “Ministry of Agriculture has a food processing unit in Central Farm. We have technical people who operate this facility and hence we are committed to product development. We develop the product for this project and we come up with different recipes and this is one example of recipe which the children like and it is of good nutrition for the children. But the banana is fortified, it has a good level of protein, it has vitamins and other supplements in it that is good for the children.”

The Project seeks to strengthen institutional plans for achieving food and nutritional security and providing support for individual smallholder farmers and or family farming. The fruit and fresh produce company, Fyffes, provided a 22,000 kitchen to the school along with equipment to produce healthy meals for children. Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Caoimhe Buckley said that through this program, she hopes to enrich the lives of the community. 

Fyffe will provide banana supporting agro- processing unit in central farm and they are also committed to providing 5 kitchens to schools for the feeding program.