Blog Lunch Matters: How school meals enhance nutrition, education and agrobiodiversity in Africa
“Schoolchildren in rural Benin used to walk a long way home at midday to eat, and most of the time, they didn't come back for afternoon classes, but now they stay at school all day because they know they’ll have food.” - Sam Bodjrenou, Researcher on Human Nutrition, Food Security and Food Sciences
According to the latest estimates, 45 million children under the age of five suffer from severe malnutrition, leaving lasting impacts on their health. However, school feeding programs offer hope, as existing initiatives show clear benefits for children’s nutrition, while also providing valuable environmental, social, economic and even cultural benefits. Here we take case studies from school meal programs in Rwanda, Benin, Burkina Faso and Kenya to explore how the various benefits were achieved and the lasting impact it brought to communities, followed by an overview of remaining challenges to upscaling school feeding to achieve these benefits across the world.
Children in the classroom while participating in a school feeding program in Madagascar. CIAT/Stefanie Neno
School meals for children’s health and education: Case studies from Rwanda and Benin
Diverse and nutritious food is essential for children’s cognitive development, and when children lack access to adequate nutrition at home, school meals play a vital role in their growth. The work of the Alliance’s Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) in Rwandan schools demonstrated these benefits: “In Rwanda, the school feeding program improves student attendance, cognition, and academic performance, currently serving 1.26 million primary school children. This includes 83,000 children in 104 schools across four districts facing high levels of poverty and food insecurity... This program meets up to 30% of a child's daily energy and macronutrient needs, and up to 70% of their micronutrient requirements.”
The contribution of these meals to children’s health is significant, and yet the benefits go beyond nutrition. As explained by Sam Bodjrenou – Alliance Researcher on human nutrition and food security: “School meals provide schoolchildren with at least one hot and nutritious meal per day. They keep pupils in school and increase their concentration”. These observations show the importance of school meals for ensuring that children in lower-income areas receive continuous education throughout their formative years, with the incentive of school meals increasing school attendance.
Cooking local leafy vegetables in Vietnam. Credit: CIAT/Trong Chinh
In Benin, Alliance researchers working on Healthy Food Africa – a research initiative to develop more equitable and resilient food systems in 10 African cities, including through school meal programs – observed how children’s interest in food and nutrition grew through the activities, encouraging them to establish long-term healthy habits. This increased engagement with nutrition also spread to students’ families and communities, as the project held an open day, inviting families to join cooking workshops to prepare nutritious meals.
In some of the participating schools, the Healthy Food Africa team also established school gardens, where teachers and students contributed to the cultivation of ingredients for their meals. As explained by one garden manager: “We produce food to supply the school canteens, but if we have surplus, the rest is sold to generate financial resources for the school.” With this integrated school feeding and gardening approach, students benefit from freshly grown produce, and the schools themselves benefit from additional income, further improving the quality of students’ education.
A student in Kenya enjoys his school lunch made with local African leafy vegetables and cowpea. Credit: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
Local food systems, organic farming and preserving heirloom varieties in Benin and Burkina Faso
“There are many benefits including child development, attendance and nutrition. There are also social and economic benefits around agricultural development and livelihoods. What is probably less appreciated are the potential climate mitigation and adaptation benefits of school feeding, especially for ‘home-grown school feeding programs’.” - Danny Hunter, Alliance Principal Scientist
'Home-grown school feeding programs' source ingredients either from school gardens or from nearby smallholder farmers, thus strengthening local food systems through short food supply chains that support the livelihoods of producers in nearby areas. As well as benefitting local food systems, this small-scale food supply has environmental benefits: In the Healthy Food Africa project in Benin, schools with their own gardens use ingredients grown directly on site with no need for transportation, and, according to the manager of one of the school gardens, “here, we engage in organic farming and do not use synthetic chemicals”; by growing at a small scale, schools are able to invest in farming systems that are less damaging to soil health, showing the contribution of school feeding to more sustainable farming practices and local sourcing.
Beyond their role in strengthening local food systems and promoting sustainable farming, school gardens also provide a valuable opportunity to preserve neglected and underutilized species (NUS). These crops, often overlooked in modern agriculture, have untapped potential for climate adaptation, biodiversity enhancement, and support for rural farmers. However, due to habitat loss, shifts in dietary habits, and a lack of research and policy support, many NUS are disappearing.
Recognizing this challenge, the EU-funded SUSTLIVES supports local efforts to integrate NUS into school gardens and education in Burkina Faso and Niger. Under the project, the Alliance collaborated with Association Watinoma to pilot the first school-based training module on local NUS in Koubri, Burkina Faso. The module introduced students to traditional crops such as Bambara groundnut, moringa and sorrel, combining theoretical knowledge with hands-on agricultural training. A dedicated nursery for these NUS crops was also established within the school garden, allowing students to plant, cultivate, and learn about these species firsthand.
This module has sparked enthusiasm among young learners, many of whom are eager to share their newfound knowledge. As one student reflected, “This activity gives us a chance to learn, and if we have friends who don't know how (to grow NUS), we can teach them, and they can repeat the same thing at home".
Students in Burkina Faso learn about local neglected and underutilized species (NUS). Credit: SUSTLIVES/Hyacinthe Combary
Improving schoolchildren’s nutrition while revalorizing indigenous crops at the community level: A case study from Kenya
The potential of school feeding programs for increasing the value given to traditional crop varieties was especially clear in Busia County, Kenya, where the use of native leafy vegetables in school meals contributed to students’ nutrition, increased local farmers’ income and generated popular interest in these traditional varieties, not only amongst the students, but amongst their wider community as well. A project led by ACIAR with contributions from the Alliance found that two thirds of the population in Busia County were unable to meet their basic food needs, with 11% of children under five classified as underweight. The project aimed to strengthen school feeding programs while using school meals to popularize and conserve indigenous varieties. Highly nutritious, these varieties are also better adapted to the local climate than imported varieties, allowing them to grow with minimum additional inputs, thus reducing the environmental impact of arable farming.
In Kenya, as in many other countries, the introduction of foreign crop varieties has led to changes in consumer preferences, and many local crops have become unappreciated by consumers. However, incorporating an educational component into the school feeding programs – including an open day for families and local organizations where chefs prepared dishes with traditional vegetables – significantly increased the local community’s appreciation of these foods, while increasing knowledge of their nutritional value and how to meet their own needs with local crops. As the knowledge gained from these school feeding programs spread, appreciation for local products grew, and local farmers even reported an increase in demand for these products in markets, showing the reach of school feeding’s positive contributions to the wider community: Not only do students grow up with a greater awareness of nutrition and local varieties, but the knowledge shared also creates interest amongst the people in the students’ social surroundings, ultimately bringing nutritional benefits to people of all ages in the community, while returning value to indigenous crops.
A woman at her market stall in Uganda. Credit: CIAT/Neil Palmer
Field visit in Kenya. Credit: CIAT/Owen Kimani
State of upscaling and challenges
According to the latest estimate (2022), 407.8 million children receive school meals globally, amounting to 25% of school-age children. However, although the trend is positive across the world, with the provision of school meals increasing in both high- and low-income countries, there is still significant inequality, with 61% of primary-school children in high-income countries benefiting from school meals, compared with 18% in low-income countries.
According to Alliance researchers leading the school feeding programs explored above, the main challenges for upscaling these initiatives include budget, policy, incentives and support for local farmers. According to Sam Bodjrenou from Benin, “one thing that must change to upscale this work across the world is to diversify the funding sources. This can be done by including the private sector, or creating a national school meals fund which could be supported by governments, private investors, NGOs and individuals”, showing the need to demonstrate the benefits of school meals to a range of potential investors. Meanwhile, Danny Hunter – Principal Scientist at the Alliance – emphasized the need to strengthen countries’ central management of school feeding: “The challenges and benefits are multifaceted and cut across sectors. [We need] visible and high-level multistakeholder platforms at the national level that bring together education, health, agriculture, social development and the environment in one space.”
A woman prepares bean varieties for a school feeding program in Madagascar. Credit: CIAT/Stefanie Neno
Tying together the promise and challenges of school meals
These case studies show the important value that school feeding programs are bringing to schoolchildren and communities in four African countries in terms of nutrition, quality education, sustainable supply chains, and even the important cultural component of revaluing native food species. Gaps remain in terms of funding, policy and the incentives on behalf of potential investors, but progress is being made as evidence grows for the contribution of nutritious lunches for schoolchildren in reaching multiple global objectives.
The Team
Sam Bodjrenou
Postdoctoral Fellow
Danny Hunter
Principal Scientist, Convener for the Pacific
Teresa Borelli
Scientist I
Sharon Mendonce
Research FellowCover Image: Children learn about neglected and underutilized species at school in Burkina Faso. Credit: SUSTLIVES/Hyacinthe Combary
