School feeding: Farmers, cooks, others earn N651m daily
Federal Government's Social Intervention Programme (SIP) has created
wealth for over 250,000 farmers, cooks and others involved in the
scheme.
Statistics made available during a joint press briefing on the
progress of the Scheme, showed that a total of N651million is being
earned on a daily basis by farmers and cooks.
Briefing newsmen on the successes of the scheme, Mr Ismaeel Ahmed,
Senior Special Assistant to the President on SIP, said that a total of
9.3 million children were currently being fed in over 49,000 schools
in 26 states.
Ahmed added that the government was currently engaging over 150,000
farmers across Nigeria and over 100,000 cooks in the 26 states at the
cost of N70 per child every school day.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that at N70 every school day
for 9.3 million children, the Federal Government pays the farmers and
the cooks N651 million.
The Social Investment Programme consists primarily of 4 units: The
N-Power Programme which is targeted at unemployed young graduates; the
Home Grown School Feeding Programme which seeks to feed all Nigerian
children in public primary schools; the Conditional Cash Transfer
which gives out 5,000 Naira monthly in cash to the poorest of the poor
Nigerians in our innermost rural communities; and the GEEP comprising
of Market Moni and Trader Moni, which is giving loans of N50,000 to N
100,000 Naira to artisans, market men and women, small
Ahmed explained that the money paid to farmers in the school feeding
programme had gone a long way to change the lot of thousands of
farmers, cooks and others involved in the value chain for the school
feeding.
"The Home-Grown School Feeding Programme is helping to create wealth
in the rural areas. The School Feeding Programme requires about 6.8
million eggs, 594 cattle and 83 metric tons of fish to be supplied to
the cooks, every week, for the purpose of feeding 9,300,892 children
in 49,837 government schools in 26 States.
"Try to imagine the impact of this demand among the rural farmers in
the communities hosting these schools.
"People who normally focused on subsistence agriculture for the sole
purpose of feeding their families, have expanded into commercialized
farming to meet the needs of the School Feeding Programme.
"These same farmers have their kids in these schools, so that serves
as added motivation to meet our demands of foodstuff because they know
it is no gimmick.
"For some of them, their wives are cooks in the programme, preparing
the meals for the school kids," he said.
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