Mulubrhan Amare, Temilolu Bamiwuye, and Ifetayo Idowu [1]
As part of the CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict and Migration, and CGIAR Initiative on National Policies and Strategies, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) recently visited Osun State, Nigeria to explore opportunities for enhancing the National Home-Grown School Feeding Program (NHGSFP).
The one-day scoping visit provided valuable insights into the successes and challenges of Osun's school feeding program, which has been operational since 2006. The Osun HGSFP currently serves over 95,000 students across 1,475 schools, with the state government providing additional funding to supplement the federal government's contribution.
During the visit, the IFPRI team met with the state HGSFP team, observed school meal preparations, and interviewed cooks and students. A few key takeaways emerged:
1, Cook training and farmer linkages hold promise: The IFPRI team plans to pilot an intervention that involves training select cooks on food handling and preparation, as well as establishing linkages between these cooks and local smallholder farmers. This dual approach aims to improve the quantity and quality of meals while also supporting local agricultural livelihoods.
2, Students value the meals: The students expressed great enthusiasm for the school feeding program, highlighting how the nutritious meals energize them and encourage their school attendance. Teachers also noted a direct correlation between the feeding program and improved academic performance.
3, Cost pressures remain a challenge: The cooks voiced concerns about the rising costs of food items and transportation, which strain their ability to consistently deliver high-quality meals. They advocated for interventions to facilitate food storage and bulk delivery to address these cost pressures.
Moving forward, IFPRI will work closely with the Osun HGSFP team to refine the research design, identify target food items and schools, and finalize the implementation timeline. The goal is to generate rigorous evidence on the impacts of the cook training and farmer linkage activities, which can inform improvements to Osun's school feeding program and potentially inspire scale-up efforts in other states.
By strengthening the linkages between cooks, farmers, and the broader NHGSFP ecosystem, this initiative aims to enhance child nutrition, support local livelihoods, and ultimately contribute to the long-term success of school-based food and agriculture interventions in Nigeria.
[1] Authors are listed.
