Enhancing School diets through climate-smart vegetable production

With rapid urbanization, schools remain an untapped frontier for building a resilient urban food system. In 2024, a survey conducted by Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF) found that approximately 400 million children globally depend on school feeding programs addressing hunger and child malnutrition in around 148 countries. Currently, school feeding programs have grown significantly in Kenya, and according to Food for Education, 450,000 children currently depend directly on school feeding program meals daily.

The home-grown school feeding (HGSF) model plays a huge role in ensuring that feeding programs are sustainable in the long run. Under the CGIAR Food Frontiers and Security Program (FFSP), IITA is working with a number of schools in Nairobi to incorporate the HGSF model towards transforming school spaces into thriving hubs. By incorporating climate-smart technologies for safe and nutritious vegetable production school meals can be easily complement using home-grown produce.

The program’s mission is to complement school diets with healthy vegetables, while simultaneously exposing students to urban agriculture and engaging them in hands-on experience. Through learners’ engagement, the program engages students in demo plots and urban farming techniques, such as kitchen gardens. Through the demonstration plots, students are able to learn the advantages of using good quality healthy tray seedlings as opposed to the conventional bareroot soil-grown seedlings, through first-hand learning. This collaboration with schools encourages positive consumer behaviour at a young age.

The program promotes the use of healthy tray seedlings in schools for vegetable production. These seedlings are grown in soilless media, such as cocopeat, and propagated under controlled conditions such as in a greenhouse. This technique is a climate-smart technique for vegetable production as it reduces overreliance on pesticides, saves space, and improves yields. This exposure fosters food system thinking in production and creates employment opportunities for the youth.

So far, the program has engaged around 1,000 students across five secondary schools in Nairobi and its environment, while supplying vegetables for the schools. The impact is expected to grow as more schools join. This activity is conducted through close collaboration with the agriculture department of the Nairobi City County government.

Authors

Danny Coyne¹, James Kisaakye¹, Ann Njeri¹, Eva Ivy Nyambura¹, Newton Nyagah Miringu¹, Janet Achieng Odera¹, Miriam Irungu¹, Mellen Nyabuto¹, Martha Awino²

¹ International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

² International Potato Center (CIP)