Brazil’s National School Feeding Program is one of the most recognised food policies in the world, linking nutrition, agriculture and social protection by requiring schools to buy fresh, local food from smallholder farmers. For Module 3 of Food EDU’s Foodomics & Society course, Redefining Food Quality for People and Planet, we set out to show how that model works in everyday practice — through the people who live it, rather than as a lecture.

Our team shaped the narrative for the film and coordinated with the World Food Programme team to plan and run the shoot on location. Over four days in and around Brasília, we filmed across two public schools, a family farm, a distribution centre and the World Food Programme’s Centre of Excellence against Hunger, working carefully inside live school environments around children, cooks and the rhythm of the school day.

Filming with children calls for particular care. We followed careful consent procedures with schools, families and guardians throughout, and worked in line with Cultivate’s Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy, with crew who hold current Blue Cards, Queensland’s Working with Children Check.

The documentary follows three connected lives. Michele Ornellas and Francisco Jorge are family farmers who gained access to land through Brazil’s agrarian reform program and now grow organic vegetables for local schools. Jacqueline de Souza, a nutritionist with the Federal District Department of Education, plans meals at the intersection of nutrition, seasonality and food education. Daniel Balaban, Director of the World Food Programme’s Centre of Excellence against Hunger, sets Brazil’s approach in a global context.

Rather than describe the policy, the film traces the food itself — from the soil of a family farm, through a distribution centre, to the school kitchen and the lunch tray. Interviews are woven with observational footage of harvest, preparation and the school day, so the connection between healthy soil, fair prices, children’s health and planetary health is something viewers see rather than hear about.

The film features on Food EDU’s course platform as a case study for learners exploring how food systems policy translates into everyday practice.