PROJECT TITLE

Transforming Kenya’s Local Food Systems Through Climate Friendly Home Grown School Feeding

Kenya aims to expand its national school meals programme from 2.6 million to 10 million children by 2030. Despite this ambition, the system remains heavily dependent on imported food, vulnerable to climate shocks, and challenged by funding constraints. Smallholder farmers in arid and semi arid lands face limited market access, low productivity, and recurrent droughts. The Joint Programme introduces and strengthens the Aggregator Model to connect climate resilient local production to school procurement, diversify menus, strengthen extension systems, and support the development of sustainable financing models for long term scale up.

• The Aggregator Model piloted and strengthened to increase the share of locally sourced nutritious food.
• Revised and diversified school menus driving demand for climate‑smart, nutrient‑dense crops.
• Smallholder farmers equipped with climate‑smart production, post‑harvest handling skills, and market linkages.
• Financing models co‑designed with government to strengthen long‑term sustainability of the scale‑up.

Ministry of Education; Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development; National School Meals Coalition; NACONEK; county governments; farmer organisations; cooperatives; private sector; Food for Education (F4E); development partners.

• Local aggregation hubs established and strengthened in priority counties.
• Climate‑resilient school menu models developed and piloted.
• Farmer field schools, demonstration plots, and extension services deployed.
• Digital and blended finance tools tested for school meals procurement.
• Evidence generated to inform national policy and the country’s scale‑up strategy.