The government is set to benefit from a $100 million global initiative by The Rockefeller Foundation aimed at expanding access to nutritious, locally sourced and sustainably produced school meals for 100 million children. In an interview with The New Times during the Africa Food Systems Forum (AFS Forum) in Kigali, Kagwiria Koome, Manager for the Food Initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation, said the initiative, announced in 2025, seeks to use school meals to improve child nutrition while supporting farmers, local economies and resilient food systems. Rwanda is among the countries where the foundation is already working to improve the quality and delivery of school meals. Koome said the initiative goes beyond providing children with food by linking school feeding programmes to local farmers and regenerative agricultural practices. “We want to showcase the power of school meals. It is not just the plate that the children receive. We want to show the power of school meals to create jobs and build the future generation,” she said. ALSO READ: Schools turn to iron-rich beans to cut feeding costs The initiative seeks to ensure that more school meals are nutritious, locally sourced and produced using farming practices that protect soil and the environment. The regenerative school meals approach connects farmers practising regenerative agriculture with public procurement systems, creating markets for farmers while promoting sustainable food production. Regenerative agriculture aims to produce food while restoring and improving soil, ecosystems and the wider environment. Supporting school feeding Koome said Rwanda has been a partner in the initiative, which has supported efforts to strengthen school feeding systems. One project, she said, is a partnership with Solid Africa to establish centralised kitchens for school meals. ALSO READ: Govt injects Rwf27bn towards school feeding Solid Africa provides free, medically tailored meals to hospitals and schools for vulnerable people. “We supported the construction of a kitchen capable of preparing about 14,000 meals a day,” Koome said. She said such projects are intended to demonstrate models that governments and other partners can later scale up. “The role of the initiative is to be catalytic. We want to show that it is possible, and then it is the role of others to expand,” she said. Fortified maize for 200,000 children The initiative is also supporting Rwanda’s efforts to improve the nutritional quality of school meals through fortified whole-grain maize flour. “Currently, about 200,000 Rwandan children are eating fortified whole-grain maize,” Koome said. A pilot conducted in 18 public schools found strong acceptance of the fortified whole-maize flour among pupils. “Reports show that 97 per cent of children in the pilot preferred the whole-grain meal after learning about its benefits,” she said. Linking farmers to schools Koome said the next phase of the work will focus on strengthening links between school feeding programmes and farmers. The foundation is also discussing with the Government of Rwanda how to expand clean cooking in school kitchens while ensuring farmers can supply food to the growing school meals system. “We are currently in discussions with the Government of Rwanda, firstly to see how we can expand clean cooking across the entire country. As that model expands, how do you ensure that farmers are supplying into that model?” she said. The approach is consistent with the regenerative school meals model, which uses public procurement to create reliable markets for farmers while promoting sustainable agricultural practices. Koome also encouraged schools to establish gardens and involve surrounding communities in food production. She said school gardens can serve as learning platforms where children acquire knowledge about regenerative farming, animal rearing and environmental protection, which they can then share with their families. “Schools are so important in terms of learning platforms,” she said. “If we have school gardens where children learn about regenerative practices and rearing animals, they will come and tell you, and you will most likely pick up that practice.” School gardens can also supplement meals with vegetables, herbs and other locally produced foods, she added. The $100 million initiative, being implemented across Africa and Southeast Asia, aims to reach 100 million additional children with nutritious meals while supporting governments and partners to expand and improve school feeding systems. Supporting local enterprises Koome said the foundation’s Good Food Innovation Fund has also supported small enterprises to increase access to nutritious and affordable food in Rwanda. “The fund was established to support small and medium-sized enterprises involved in producing and distributing nutritious food, including through institutional feeding programmes,” she said. In 2022, seven agribusiness SMEs from Rwanda and Kenya secured $1 million from the fund to produce and sell affordable fortified and nutritious foods. Finance key for smallholder farmers Ugandan agripreneur and community leader Jane Frances Achilo, founder of Abja Farms Ltd and the Jane Achilo Foundation, said access to finance for smallholder farmers is critical to transforming food systems. Abja Farms serves as a model commercial farm and training hub for more than 5,000 smallholder farmers, while the Jane Achilo Foundation focuses on youth and women’s empowerment and health camps and has trained more than 4,000 beneficiaries. Achilo said African financial institutions need to develop financing programmes that better respond to the needs of smallholder farmers, who make up the majority of farmers on the continent. She said traditional banking models often favour large commercial farmers while treating smallholder farmers as high-risk borrowers. “The biggest challenge that smallholder farmers face is access to finance. Unfortunately, the traditional banking model does not favour our smallholder and subsistence farmers in Africa,” Achilo said. Speaking on the sidelines of the AFS Forum, where she was seeking partnerships with organisations working across the agricultural value chain, Achilo said women and youth should be central to efforts to transform agriculture. “Women and youth are very key and critical to the conversation around farming,” she said, noting that women play a major role in agricultural production in many African communities. She called on governments and the private sector to develop programmes and incentives that encourage young people to view agriculture as a viable business and source of livelihoods. Such support, she said, could help reduce rural-to-urban migration and encourage young people to build businesses within their communities. ALSO READ: Farmers and consumers adopt high-iron beans for better nutrition Promoting modern farming Achilo said farmers working with her foundation are adopting modern farming techniques, including greenhouse production. Her farm in northern Uganda serves as a model farm where community members are trained in modern agricultural practices. “Greenhouses are one of the successful practices that farmers are adopting. It is something that I have showcased personally at my farm and used to train some community members,” she said. Greenhouse farming can help farmers respond to climate-related challenges by providing greater control over growing conditions, she added. Achilo is also promoting soil testing, which she said remains poorly understood among many smallholder farmers. “Farming is not just a matter of throwing seed into the ground. You have to go a bit deeper and employ scientific methods and know what is in your soil so that you know what can best grow in your area,” she said. She said better knowledge of soil composition can help farmers select suitable crops and improve productivity. Achilo said the Jane Achilo Foundation has distributed maize seeds to more than 20,000 farmers in Oyam District in northern Uganda over the past two years. She said the model could be expanded if governments and private-sector players provided greater support to organisations working directly with farming communities. “If my foundation is able to impact 20,000 people, imagine with the help of government or other private-sector players in the field. We could scale this at a much larger scale, beyond one district and eventually across Africa,” she said.
