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School feeding plan boosts small-holder farmers

Farmer harvesting maize crop. The school feeding programme buys foodstuff from small-scale farmers. [PHOTO: COURTESY]

Nairobi; Kenya: The transition of the school feeding project from World Food Programme (WFP) to the Government has come with good tidings for smallholder farmers. The move has revitalised subsistence farming across the arid and semi-arid areas. Smallholder farmers, hitherto largely exploited by middlemen and production and marketing forces that demand large economies of scales, can today happily trade with the Government, get paid promptly and improve their lot.

The Government took charge of school feeding in arid and semi-arid areas from the WFP in 2009. The first transfer involved 540,000 pupils. The State then initiated the now popular Home Grown School Feeding Programme, where cash is transferred to schools to buy foodstuff from local smallholder farmers.

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