Policy Development for Public Procurement of Organic Foods in the World: Cases of Brazil, the U.S., South Korea, and France

Abstract

Since decades, several countries worldwide have developed policies to promote public procurement of organic foods in school feeding programs. For instance, central and local governments in Brazil, the US, South Korea, and France, have been supporting public procurement of organic foods since some years. Based on questionnaire surveys and literature review, this study aimed to reveal the processes of and supporting institutions in the above-mentioned countries involved in the transformation of public procurement for sustainable food systems. The results indicated that (1) problematization of the current food systems drove the transformation of public procurement, (2) supporting institutions were established for the stable procurement of organic agri-food products, (3) different initiatives in public procurement prevented cost increases, and (4) the relations between the roles of governments and free market system in these countries are presently controversial.