School food catalyzing climate-resilient, inclusive and sustainable procurement in Tanzania

School feeding programs offer an avenue to enhance nutrition, support smallholder farmers and drive agroecological transitions in Tanzania. However, current procurement systems do not include climate-resilient, locally produced food.

This project aims to address the gap by generating evidence-based solutions that integrate agroecology into school feeding programs, strengthen procurement and promote food-system resilience, inclusion of marginalized groups and improved nutrition. It will include smallholder farmers, mainly women and youth, in the process. The use of school gardens will help to ensure better nutrition and greater variety in the menu. The project will use a participatory market chain to ensure diverse and nutritious ingredients are available to school canteens.

It will employ mixed-methods research, including policy analysis, market chain assessments, field trials, pilot procurement interventions and evaluations in schools across urban and rural Tanzania. By bridging the gap between school feeding programs and sustainable local food production, this research will test the practicality of scaling up climate-smart, gender-inclusive models. The findings will contribute to national policies on homegrown school feeding programs, neglected and underused foods, and generate scalable models for integrating agroecology into national food systems.

The project is part of the Catalyzing Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Procurement for School Food cohort of projects that aim to catalyze the adoption and scaling-up of regenerative, equitable and inclusive practices in school meal supply systems in Africa, with the goal of contributing to the agroecological transition of local and national food systems.