As Uganda prepares to mark its 5th Parliamentary Nutrition Week in Iganga this May, we are reminded of the pressing challenge that many Ugandan children face daily, the uncertainty of whether they will have a meal at school. Despite the well-documented benefits of school feeding in boosting enrolment, attendance, retention, and learning outcomes, the reality remains that school feeding in Uganda is fragmented, underfunded, and lacks strong policy backing.
Shockingly, about 67% of children in Uganda’s Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools attend classes without the benefit of a school meal. Out of over 8.2 million learners, only roughly 48,000 receive meals through government-supported programs, mostly reliant on donor-funded initiatives like those of the World Food Programme. Yet evidence clearly shows that every US dollar invested in school feeding can generate up to nine dollars in economic returns—returns that translate into healthier children, better education outcomes, and a more productive future workforce.
This year’s Nutrition Week, timed to coincide with World Nutrition Day on May 28, provides a vital platform to raise awareness and galvanize action. It’s a call to all of us to work together toward meeting Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger and Uganda’s national nutrition targets under the Uganda Nutrition Action Plan (UNAP II).
School Feeding as a Platform for Change
Did you know that school meal programs reach over 400 million children worldwide every day? In Uganda, integrating agroecology with home-grown school feeding (HGSF) is a powerful way to make every meal count. HGSF links schools directly with local smallholder farmers who embrace agroecological farming practices. This connection means children get fresher, more diverse, and culturally fitting meals, supporting their physical and cognitive development.
At the same time, this approach creates stable markets for small-scale farmers, helping them improve their livelihoods and invest in sustainable practices. It reduces the carbon footprint associated with transporting food long distances and makes farming systems more resilient to climate shocks benefits that protect our children’s health today and in the future.
Uganda’s Progress and the Road Ahead
Uganda has shown political commitment by developing a National School Feeding Policy expected by 2025 and advancing the Food and Nutrition Bill. However, a fully government-funded national school feeding program is yet to be realized. Families, communities, and donors still carry much of the burden.
One shining example is the Karamoja region, where the World Food Programme partners with the government to feed over 250,000 children across 320 schools. The “Karamoja Feeds Karamoja” initiative, supported by a government contribution of about 2.5 billion shillings over five years, has injected nearly 1.9 million dollars into the local economy and increased food procurement from smallholder farmers fivefold between 2022 and 2024.
Challenges We Cannot Ignore
Despite these successes, challenges remain particularly in ensuring the safety of school meals. Recent outbreaks of food poisoning have severely affected children and disrupted schooling. In September 2023, over 100 pupils at Golden Learning Centre in Mityana were hospitalized after suspected food poisoning. Earlier that year, Nakanyonyi Secondary School in Mukono was temporarily closed following a Bacillus cereus outbreak linked to improperly stored food. Similar incidents in Amudat’s Kalas Girl’s Primary School in 2024 remind us that food safety is a critical concern, especially in vulnerable regions like Karamoja.
How we can we improve on school feeding?
Promotion of Agroecology in schools
Agroecology and home-grown school feeding embody a holistic solution to Uganda’s intertwined challenges of hunger, malnutrition, and education. They support smallholder farmers, build climate resilience, and foster sustainable local food systems that nourish our children and empower our communities.
When we talk about transforming school feeding, agroecology is a word you will hear a lot and for good reason. Malnutrition continues to threaten millions of children worldwide, especially Africa where food insecurity is common and diets lack diversity even when Uganda is termed as a food basket; Of course, Food security doesn’t imply Nutrition Security. Meanwhile, conventional farming practices; monocultures, heavy use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are damaging the environment, degrading soils, and driving climate change. These unsustainable systems jeopardize not only food security but also the health and wellbeing of our communities.
Agroecology offers a hopeful way forward. It is a farming approach that blends scientific knowledge with indigenous and traditional practices. More than that, it’s about respecting and working with nature building healthy soils through organic matter recycling, conserving water, encouraging biodiversity through intercropping and agroforestry, and minimizing harmful chemical inputs. This means farmers can grow a variety of nutritious foods legumes, fruits, vegetables, whole grains that are essential for our children’s growth and development.
Growing the Movement
Encouragingly, agroecology clubs and school gardens are gaining traction nationwide. The Ministry of Agriculture has set guidelines for school demonstration gardens, and civil society organizations are actively training students in ecological agriculture. UNICEF and partners support gardens in regions like West Nile, where parents also contribute to school feeding efforts, boosting nutrition and attendance. These efforts should be scaled out to cover all schools in the country and integrated in government plans and frameworks.
A Call to Action
Enabling Environment: As Uganda moves forward, PELUM Uganda and its partners urge the government to fast-track the Food and Nutrition Bill, finalize the long-awaited National Agroecology Strategy, and allocate sufficient funding to scale up sustainable school feeding programs.
Promotion of Local Procurement: Work alongside community leaders to link schools directly with local, smallholder agroecological farmers.
Parent-Led Adaptations: Since Uganda’s Education Act gives parents the responsibility for feeding children at school, policies should be adapted to encourage parents to contribute agroecologically grown produce rather than ultra-processed foods.
Capacity Building: Provide local agricultural training workshops for teachers and parents on soil fertility, water harvesting, and food preparation to ensure long-term, sustainable management
Together, we can ensure that no child must learn on an empty stomach and that our future generations grow strong, healthy, and empowered.
By Mary Apio Pelum Uganda Advocacy Officer
