ABUJA, Sept 14 (The African Portal) – The federal government says it is working to expand the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) to reach 50 million primary school pupils by 2026.
The National Programme Manager of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), Aderemi Adebowale, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
“We are working to include early years – primary 1 to 3, primary 4 to 6 – in the school feeding programme, and also out-of-school children, which we are handling step by step to integrate.
So, by the year 2026, we are looking at feeding close to 50 million pupils in primary school in Nigeria.
Ideally, school feeding should be between N500 to N1,000 per child. Even at N500 per child, you should be able to still give the children a nutritious and delicious meal on a daily basis,” she said.
Mrs Adebowale added that the agency was working to control costs through an alignment of small-holder farmers, aggregators, supply chains, and development partners.
“With this alignment, we’ll be able to control price from the rock bottom. We are not going to be doing market prices. So, we have to agree on prices from our suppliers, agri-vendors, and farmers to arrive at a reasonable cost per plate.
Once we do that, we will follow up on the payment and service delivery,” she said.
NAN recalls that on May 27, 2025, the federal government inaugurated the Alternate Education and Renewed Hope National Home-Grown School Feeding Project, aimed at providing meals for 20 million out-of-school and underserved children by 2026.
The initiative was launched in Abuja by the former Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Nentawe Yilwatda, who is now the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The programme was rolled out through the Renewed Hope National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (RH-NHGSFP), in partnership with the National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children Education and the National Identity Management Commission.
Mr Yilwatda had highlighted the programme as one of the key components of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), introduced to mark President Bola Tinubu’s second year in office.
Credit: Premium Times
