In the western town of Paoua, a community revitalizes farming and education, with WFP support
Simplice Beyo sings in the local Sango language as he leads some 20 women and men in harvesting rice in the Central African Republic's northwestern town of Paoua. Droplets of early morning dew still cling to the green plants.
Now in his 30s, the head of a local farming group recalls better days, when harvests and food were plentiful.
"Paoua used to be considered the breadbasket of the Central African Republic," Beyo says. "But with the succession of conflicts, food production has dropped drastically, bringing hunger into our homes."
Agriculture - which employs about 80 percent of Central Africans - counts among the many casualties of the country's years-long unrest and political upheaval. Conflict has driven farmers and herders from their lands, reducing food output and deepening hunger.
Today, nearly two million people in the country - or roughly one in three - face high levels of acute hunger, according to newly released expert hunger findings, known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC. A mix of factors explain the food insecurity, from poverty and erratic rainfall, to armed violence that has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people over the years, and disrupted supply chains.
But in places like Paoua, communities are taking up farming again - thanks to calm in parts of the country since the signing of 2019 peace agreements. Tens of thousands of refugees who fled CAR are returning home to pick up their lives.
Paoua's residents are profiting from the peace dividend in bigger ways. With support from the World Food Programme (WFP), farm harvests from cooperatives like Beyo's provide the raw ingredients for WFP's first school meals initiative in the country using locally produced food.
"With the arrival of the school canteen, we are seeing overcrowding in our classrooms,' says Betokomia 1 primary school Headmaster Franklin Tembay-Masseneang. School attendance has more than doubled - from 650 five years ago to more than 1,400 pupils.
WFP's school feeding initiative is now set to be replicated in three other schools in the larger Lim-Pende prefecture where Paoua is located. For many here, it is part of a bigger renaissance.
Agricultural productivity is sharply up, thanks to WFP-supplied improved seeds, and farming and post-harvesting technology. Beyo's own cooperative, made up of more than 160 families, has mobilized to expanded its cultivation from 3 to 35 hectares. Along with maize, groundnuts and beans, he and fellow farmers are growing rice and sesame, as well as market garden produce such as okra, carrots, tomatoes and watermelon.
That output assures the community greater dietary diversity - and lays the groundwork for the future. Part of the cooperative's harvests benefit its families. Another part is used as a seed reserve for future harvests. The rest provides the WFP-supported ingredients for Betokomia 1's school canteen.
Education - and much more
Paoua's community is investing in its schools in other ways. Years-long violence, sown by a raft of armed groups, has damaged school infrastructure, chased away teachers and robbed many Central African children of an education. At Betokomia 1 school, headmaster Tembay-Masseneang is the only instructor with a teaching degree.
Parent volunteers have been filling the empty teaching spots. Now, some of the profits from Beyo's cooperative ensures they are paid.
"Thanks to (the WFP) partnership, we were able to raise 1.5 million CFA francs," or roughly US$2,400, says Beyo, a father of 14, who has children at Betokomia 1 primary. "And with this money, we were able to pay the salaries of the parent-teachers."
Pelagie Homdoyote's three children also attend the primary school. Her family, which recently returned home after 12 years in exile in Cameroon, is struggling to make ends meet.
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"On the days when I work, I earn a bit of money and have enough to cook for my children," she says. "But sometimes I earn nothing and I rely on the school so my children can eat," thanks to the WFP-supported meals.
For other children too, Betokomia 1's hearty meals of rice, peas and other vegetables, are sometimes their only food for the day. But headmaster Tembay-Masseneang lists other paybacks.
"When children come to collect their school meal, they get an education," he says. "All this helps the country to move forward."
France is supporting WFP's work to strengthen food and nutritional resilience in CAR's Lim Pende Prefecture.
WFP needs US$8.1 million in 2025 to replicate the farm-to-school initiative, known as Home Grown School Feeding, in 44 schools in the Central African Republic.
