School milk and fruit: agriculture MEPs promote healthy eating - Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development

"A healthy, balanced diet is the foundation of good health but the consumption of fruit, vegetables and milk has been declining across the EU. This is why it is of the utmost importance to strengthen the school fruit, vegetables and milk scheme by increasing its budget and making it more focuse...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inM2 Presswire
Format Newsletter
LanguageEnglish
Published Coventry Normans Media Ltd 12.01.2016
Subjects
Education
Fruits
Funding
Milk
Rural development
Schools
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:"A healthy, balanced diet is the foundation of good health but the consumption of fruit, vegetables and milk has been declining across the EU. This is why it is of the utmost importance to strengthen the school fruit, vegetables and milk scheme by increasing its budget and making it more focused on healthy-eating education. Parliament also ensured the financial stability of the programme by preventing member states from unilaterally cutting its budget or changing the criteria for allocating EU funds among themselves," said Marc Tarabella (S&D, BE), who steered the legislation through Parliament and led the EP's negotiating team. Products containing added fruits, nuts or cocoa, such as chocolate milk or yogurts with fruits, and flavoured foodstuffs will still be eligible for EU funding under the school scheme. But MEPs ensured that the EU will only pay for the milk part of it, which must make up at least 90%, or in exceptional cases, at least 75%, of the final product. The school milk scheme was set up in 1977. The school fruit scheme, which includes a provision for education, was introduced in 2009. Both schemes were created to promote the consumption of fruit, vegetables and milk and milk products but they have so far operated under different legal and financial arrangements. All 28 EU member states participate in the school milk scheme and 25 in the school fruit scheme ( the UK, Finland and Sweden do not take part).