Nearly all EU countries opt into free fruit scheme

Reporting by Jeremy Smith
Reuters
Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:07pm EDT

BRUSSELS, June 16 (Reuters) - Millions of children in nearly all of the EU's 27 countries will get free fruit and vegetables from next school year under a scheme to promote healthy eating and tackle child obesity, the bloc's farm chief said on Tuesday.

Only Finland, Latvia and Sweden chose not to take part in the first year of the scheme, which provides 90 million euros ($125 million) in EU funding to help pay for and distribute fresh and processed fruit and vegetables. These countries will be able to take part in the scheme's later years if they wish.

That cash amount will be matched in each country by national and private funds. The scheme begins in the 2009/10 school year.

Countries will be able to restrict national programmes to EU-grown fruit or import, depending on price, availability and seasonality. They will also have to set up strategies that include educational and awareness-raising initiatives.

Many European Union countries already have fairly successful subsidised fruit and vegetable programmes in schools but others, such as in central and eastern Europe, lack such schemes.

One of the EU funding scheme's main aims is to halt the bloc's alarming trend in obesity, especially among children.

An estimated 22 million children in the union are overweight. More than 5 million of these are obese and this figure is due to rise by 400,000 every year.

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