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Each year on 16 October World Food Day aims to increase understanding of problems and solutions in the drive to end hunger, malnutrition and poverty. Over the years the day has taken on various themes which have focused on investing in agriculture and recently focus has been drawn on health and education too. 

One solution which countries have put in place to combat hunger and poverty is to provide free school meals to their schoolchildren, and now an increasing number of governments are looking at how school feeding can do the same for their smallholder farmers.   

Globally the scale of school feeding is massive. The State of School Feeding Worldwide a ground breaking report published earlier this year by the UN’s World Food Programme and World Bank with support from Imperial College London’s Partnership for Child Development (PCD), found that governments in 169 countries are investing up to $75 billion dollars annually to provide school meals to over 368 million children every school day. 

Read more: School meals can do more than just feed children