Peasants protest in the streets and parents with children in squares
- The peasants protest, but the agro-industrial model has taken the lead. The Green Pact, the European Union’s main strategy over the next decade, can also be brought down without blinking. Meanwhile, lice and worms are served in Basque schools. Here too, without blinking, the Basque Government continues to exercise its powers in favour of an unsustainable catering model.
Farmers have left the street and there is nothing more to do with the tractors they have to represent their land and enter the model of industrial cultivation: local, local and 0km, but forming part of a globalized rural model. In Europe they are also frightened by the exhibition and Ursula von der Leyen is coming out from one day to the next saying that he will withdraw the 50% reduction plan for pesticide use. The Basque Government also undertakes to “harmonise” environmental policies with agricultural activity.
At the same time, we have received news related directly to the farmers who have left the street: the appearance of vegetable lice and worms in the dishes of school canteens, the offer of “deteriorated” food for children. And again, a situation that refers to the globalized food model that seeks maximum economic performance. There is nothing more to do with the economic dimension of the contracts awarded for the management of canteens and the importance of the price criterion in the specifications, a service that can only be offered by the increasingly large catering companies.
The decision has been taken on the economic model to be implemented and the decent working conditions of organic farmers and the state of health of the food that children eat in their daily lives are not considered basic conditions. The CAPV Department of Education is limited to the path of “direct management”, awarding the public purchase of food in collective dining rooms by bidding companies. Thus, the management of the 17 school canteens lost these days by the company Serunion catering will be in the hands of other companies that provide the same service and the company Serunion will go on to manage the hospital in Urduliz.
It is not going to be because we do not have the capacity to wager on other models, the 1992 state law proposes five models and leaves the decision in the hands of each autonomous community. There are other decentralized models in the area: the Government of Navarra is working on a new decree, focusing on the “autonomy” of the schools, and the Department of Education will be able to enter into “alliances” with local entities that want to take over school canteens. The Company has been working for a long time to bring management models similar to CAPV.
We therefore hope that as the number of children in schools declines, school canteens will not have to stop being profitable for large catering companies, so that, once and for all, the decision on public-purchasing dining is left to school councils. As for public purchasing in residences and hospitals, which are the business fields that the main catering companies will conquer in an increasingly strategic way.
