Connecting school meals with local food chains: practical lessons from Rwanda
- May 15
- 4 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Rwanda now provides school meals to almost 4.8 million students – one of the country’s most ambitious investments in education, nutrition, and child wellbeing. But as school feeding expands nationwide, attention is increasingly turning to a new question: how can these meals become more nutritious, more diverse, and more connected to Rwanda’s local food systems?
These themes sat at the centre of a recent webinar, From Evidence to Action: School Feeding for Food Systems Transformation in Rwanda, which brought together representatives from government, research institutions, NGOs, schools, and practitioners from across the country. The event also marked the launch of the Rwanda Community of Policy & Practice (CoPP), a new platform designed to strengthen collaboration and shared learning around school feeding and food systems transformation.
According to Sam Ngabire, National Coordinator of the Home-Grown School Feeding Project for the Ministry of Education, school meals are now providing around 35-40% of students’ daily nutritional intake requirements. But while school feeding coverage has expanded significantly, nutrition challenges remain. As highlighted by Esther Mukundane, Executive Director of Gardens for Health International (GHI), a Rwanda-led non-profit organisation working on nutrition, school gardens, and community health, around one third of children in Rwanda are still affected by malnutrition.
Attention is now increasingly turning from simply expanding access to meals towards improving nutritional quality, strengthening local sourcing systems, and connecting school meals programmes more closely with farmers and communities.
Strengthening nutrition through practical solutions
Working across 43 schools, one project has been testing crops including iron-rich beans, pro-vitamin A maize, orange-fleshed sweet potato, carrots, and red amaranths, with the aim of improving nutrient diversity in school meals – while also strengthening local production systems. Led by Dr. Jean d’Amour Manirere, Researcher and Lecturer at the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Science at the University of Rwanda, the research is exploring how more micronutrient-rich foods can be integrated into school feeding systems through school farm trials and local supply chains. Dr. Manirere explained:
"We needed to come up with an approach that’s connecting agriculture, nutrition and market at the same time."
To better understand nutritional gaps and identify opportunities for improvement, the project team has also been analysing school meals directly by collecting and testing food samples from schools. Dr. Manirere continued:
"Most school meals meet calorie targets. But there is a problem of nutrient diversity."
The challenge now is how to make school meals more nutritious while keeping them affordable and practical for schools and communities.
Seeing impact at the school level
At GS Jean de la Mennais school in Burera District, Headteacher Brother Pierre has seen how Rwanda’s national school meals programme is changing daily life for students.
Alongside a reported 25% reduction in absenteeism, he described improvements in classroom engagement, stronger participation from parents, and growing awareness among teachers and students around nutrition and meal quality. He reflected:
"What was once seen as a simple feeding is now recognised as a driver of education, nutrition and economic development."
These changes reflect a broader shift in how school feeding is increasingly being viewed in Rwanda, not simply as a welfare intervention, but as part of wider efforts to strengthen education, health, livelihoods, and community resilience.
From school gardens to centralised kitchens
Across Rwanda, different implementation models are already operating at scale to improve meal diversity while strengthening links between schools, farmers, and local food systems.
Solid’Africa, a Rwanda-based organisation working on community nutrition and large-scale meal supply, described its “farm to plate” approach, where food is procured directly from over 7,000 local farmers, prepared in two centralised kitchens, and distributed to schools nationwide. Delivering 17 different ingredients, including vegetables, beans, and fortified maize, the model now serves around 30,000 children daily as well as 130,000 hospital patients annually.
To create more stable local markets around school feeding, Solid’Africa also works through advance purchasing agreements with farmers. Participating farmers have seen income increases averaging around 61%, according to Founder and Executive Director Isabelle Kamariza. Efficient systems and coordination, she added, have been key to making nutritious meals affordable at scale:
“The food is not expensive. It is a matter of partnering with local farmers early on in the procurement process to figure out how to lock-in prices at scale."
Alongside efforts to strengthen food supply systems, organisations are also working to improve community awareness and engagement around school feeding. GHI combines school gardens with nutrition education and outreach activities across schools and surrounding communities. The organisation currently supports school feeding activities across 180 schools in nine districts, countrywide, and has reached more than 195,000 pre-primary and primary students through school gardens linked to school meal programmes. Mukundane explained:
“School gardens contribute about 60 to 80% of the vegetables used in the school meals."
The gardens also serve as practical learning spaces where students learn about food production, healthy diets, and nutrition. GHI has also trained thousands of teachers, local leaders, and community members in nutrition, health, and agriculture, helping extend nutrition awareness beyond schools and into households and communities.
A platform for shared learning
With multiple initiatives already operating across Rwanda, participants highlighted the need for stronger coordination and shared learning between organisations working on school feeding, nutrition, and local food systems.
The launch of the Rwanda CoPP is intended to strengthen collaboration across these efforts and accelerate practical learning between programmes already operating nationwide.
For Nicole Umuhoza of the University of Rwanda, continued collaboration will be essential if Rwanda is to build on the progress already achieved.
“Let's join forces and close this gap because we really believe that school feeding can be a channel to food system transformation for Rwanda.”
