Integrating fortified whole grains into school meals to provide nutritious food for children was part of discussions between Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente and Roy Steiner, the Senior Vice President of the Food Initiative at the Rockefeller Foundation, on Wednesday, September 4, as they considered ways to enhance Rwanda's school feeding programme.
Steiner, who is in Rwanda for the 2024 Africa Food Systems Forum (AFS Forum), taking place from September 2 to September 6, described the meeting with the Prime Minister as "wonderful."
"I had a wonderful meeting with the Prime Minister, where we discussed the shift from refined grains to whole grains. For schoolchildren, fortified whole grains are significantly more nutritious, and they help conserve food. When you refine grains, you lose 20 to 30 percent of the volume and about 90 percent of the nutrition," Steiner explained.
ALSO READ: More schools to benefit from nutritiously fortified whole grain maize flour
He emphasized that providing fortified whole grains is one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to ensure children's health and well-being.
"This solution doesn't incur any additional cost, and it allows children to receive higher levels of nutrition in their school meals," he added.
Minister of Education Gaspard Twagirayezu elaborated on the collaboration between the government and the Rockefeller Foundation. They are working with the ministries of agriculture, trade and industry, and education, among others, to expand the school feeding programme by adding fortified whole grain maize to student's meals. Discussions are centered on increasing the capacity of producers to process fortified whole-grains so that more schools and students can benefit.
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"We discussed scaling up the production of fortified whole grain maize, ensuring that more schools and students have access to this nutritious food. It is important that we invest in these efforts and implement them correctly," Twagirayezu said.
While fortified whole grains in school feeding programmes are not new globally, he noted, Rwanda has previously solely used refined maize flour but integration of fortified whole grain flour was in few schools during the pilot phase.
A pilot programme involving fortified whole grains last year started in 18 schools in Nyaruguru and Nyamagabe districts, benefiting 13,765 students.
During the 2024 AFS Forum, the Fortified Whole Grain Alliance (FWGA) launched an ambitious initiative to reach 10 million people across seven countries - Benin, Burundi, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda - with fortified whole grains by 2025.
