School meals: a missing link in cocoa and coffee communities?

When we talk about coffee and cocoa, typically we hear about the yields, prices, export markets and incomes of farmers. These are critical. But what if one of the most powerful levers for transforming these sectors is sitting quietly in a classroom?

Last November, Rikolto’s strategy and board meeting took place in Mbale, Uganda, and I had the occasion to learn first-hand about our Good Food at School initiative at Namakwekwe Primary School. This initiative has allowed children access to nutritious, balanced meals, and the cascading impact is unmistakable. School enrolment is rising, dropouts are falling, children are staying in school, more motivated, more alert and more hopeful, according to the head teacher of the school.

And before you think that this is just a school feeding story: it is not. It’s a food systems story.

Child labour and malnutrition are persistent problems in most cocoa and coffee growing communities. These issues tend to be treated separately, through compliance and monitoring or even putting up schools’ infrastructure. But what if they share a common root? Poverty, which is an established fact, food insecurity, and fragile local food systems create conditions which make it impossible for families to have choices.

When farmer income is inadequate and food is not available, children are more likely to work and less likely to learn.

By getting children healthy meals at school, we take the pressure off households. We turn school into not just a learning institution but a nourishing place, a place of dignity. We lower the economic motivation of child labour while improving children’s physical and cognitive development. We provide incentives for children to stay in school.

Here at Rikolto, this is how we innovate in coffee and cocoa: by seeing our way out beyond the farm gate. As we are finetuning our new strategy, for 2027 and beyond, we envision that our coffee and coffee interventions from now onwards will be taking this up aspect, to ensure that every child in coffee and cocoa producing origins has access to healthy and nutritious meals in schools. This should be non-negotiable.

A sustainable coffee or cocoa sector is not just one in which farmers live and earn a living. It is one where communities grow, where farmers earn a living income, and where children are in school, not in fields. Where schools can find local farmers to serve diverse, nutritious foods, providing local markets that circulate value across the community. Where food systems meet the needs of producers and consumers, starting from the youngest.

Results from Rikoltos’ Good Food at Schools initiatives show how changing global value chains starts with reinforcing local ones. It suggests that treating malnutrition can also reduce child labour. It shows that investing in children’s diets can be an investment in the future resilience of the coffee and cocoa landscapes.

If we are truly serious about sustainable cocoa and coffee, then we must feed the next generation, not just with information but with good food.