After five days of intense activities, the technical mission of Benin government representatives to Brazil came to an end on Friday (30) in Brasilia. The visit is part of the Beyond Cotton Project, promoted under the trilateral South-South Cooperation between Brazil, Benin and the World Food Programme (WFP), with the support of the Brazilian Cotton Institute (IBA), the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) and the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger in Brazil.
The mission programme involved technical visits to schools, health centres, family farming settlements and meetings with authorities from the Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Health and Social Development. The aim was to deepen the exchange of experiences on Brazilian public policies aimed at school feeding, family farming and food and nutrition security.
Daniel Balaban, director of the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger, highlighted the role of international partnerships: “At a time when Brazil is cooperating with Benin in the Beyond Cotton Project, Brazil is growing together. Co-operation is a two-way street to promote sustainable solutions adapted to the local reality, strengthening food production and the right to food,” he said.
The National School Feeding Programme model was presented to the Beninese delegation by Daniel Baldoni, food and nutrition security coordinator at the National Fund for the Development of Education (FNDE).
He stressed that the National School Feeding Programme is strategic because it integrates food and nutrition education with family farming. ‘It’s a model in which students have access to adequate food; schools receive fresh, local produce; and farmers have a more stable income, contributing to the economy in the communities where they live.’
For Dominique Dedegbe, a representative of Benin’s Ministry of Agriculture, the Beyond Cotton Project has brought about structural changes for many of the actors involved: “We’ve made a lot of progress in our way of growing cotton with intercropped food crops, which are supplied for school meals. But we want to go even further in this direction.”
Fousséni Yaro, a representative of the farmers’ co-operative in the village of Copargo, also celebrated the experience: “The project has opened our eyes to a new way of planting. We started to produce more and better, taking into account the properties of the soil and the use of biological pest control.”
ABC project analyst Riffat Iqbal highlighted the medium-term impacts: “This mission is an important step for technical cooperation to continue generating concrete results in Benin, while at the same time strengthening Brazilian initiatives in the areas of school feeding and family farming, which is at the centre of our cooperation actions.”
The mission also received technical support from the Federal University of Western Bahia (UFOB). Nutritionist Débora Porcino said: “We saw how much we have in common between Brazil and Benin. Especially in Bahia, which has African influence in the ingredients and dishes we prepare, including for school meals. What we emphasised is the importance of offering variety on the menu, contributing to the nutritional enrichment of school meals.”
The teacher responsible for the project components, Mario Santos, added: “The visit to Sítio Sementes was an opportunity to present in Brazil what we work on in Benin in syntropic agriculture, as a sustainable production alternative for tropical climates, combining agroforestry and agroecology.”
The mission ended with an open dialogue for possible continuity of strategic actions for future collaboration between the countries.