In the course of my work, I discovered that National Home Grown School Feeding Programme is actually a well conceived school feeding programme that will establish a safety net for the poor and eradicate malnutrition in school children while stimulating the national economy.

It is also important to note, that the mission to provide one free meal a day to pupils in public primary schools in Nigeria has endeared many school dropouts back to school.

*So What Are The Benefits to the Children?*

As a child psychologist and nutritionist I can say that, children benefit from nutritious balanced school meal which reduces hunger and improves education outcomes.

Also, research has shown that primary school is where children experience fastest growth in physical, mental and socio-emotional characteristics and that there should adequate provision nutritious meals, which will be aim at promotion of good health, proper growth of children and enhancing learning process and learning ability.

Simply put, cast your mind back to when you tried to study without food in your stomach, you will read one paragraph like 20 times and still not understand what you’re reading.

The NHGSFP also has huge economic benefits because it creates jobs which is the multiplier effect of the scheme.

There are 1, 900, 000 farmers and 103,913 cooks engaged across 31 states so far. This means that local farmers can sell their produce, thereby boosting the agriculture sector and the social economy status of both the cook and the farmer.

Apart from farmers and cooks, there are those hired to handle logistics, the meat sellers are also there, and this shows that the chain is indeed long.

*Morenike Oladele writes from Ekiti*