School Food, Co-Management, and Indigenous Peoples: The Illusion of Subnational Power in Peru
Peru’s National School Feeding Program, Qaliwarma, is based on a principle of co-responsibility and co-management, and advocates adaptation to local food habits. However, in the indigenous Amazonian context, it provides industrial food from the Andean and coastal regions, produced by large national and international companies that monopolize the food market. Yet, many of these peoples are food collectors and producers. Based on an ethnographic survey conducted between 2013 and 2017, this article explores the limitations of the Peruvian co-management model, and the local accommodations and resistance it generates among two Amazonian indigenous peoples, maijuna and napuruna. It shows that the political choices about the design and the modalities of application of the program extend in a singular way the existing mechanisms of domination and resistance. The program is highly centralized and, based on international guidelines, favors agribusiness to the detriment of small-scale producers and indigenous peoples. Although “participatory” committees have been created, co-management is limited to technical delegation and is ill-equipped to create spaces for dialogue and to adapt to local food habits. However, the informal “collaboration” of parents, especially mothers who prepare meals, plays a fundamental role in this respect. The article highlights the following paradox: their political action is not located in the space of co-management put forward by the government but rather in their direct participation in the provision of meals.