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The Government of Sierra Leone, in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP), has launched the 2026/27 Home-Grown School Feeding Programme with the procurement of one million kilogrammes of locally produced rice, a purchase valued at nearly US$1 million and expected to inject significant income directly into farming communities.
The handover ceremony took place on August 4, 2026, at the WFP warehouse in Kissy, eastern Freetown, where Agriculture Minister Dr. Henry Musa Kpaka officially presented 20,000 bags of 50 kilogrammes of rice each to the Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Conrad Sackey.
“This is a practical demonstration of the Feed Salone agenda,” Dr. Kpaka said, noting that support from the World Bank-funded Food Systems Resilience Programme enabled WFP to purchase the rice directly from local farmers.
WFP Country Representative Andrew Odero confirmed that the agency had procured one million kilogrammes of locally produced rice, valued at NLe22 million, equivalent to about US$1 million, for the new academic year.
The rice will support school meals for more than 250,000 schoolchildren across five districts.
Minister Sackey said the programme is helping to improve school attendance, enhance children’s nutrition and contribute to better learning outcomes through improved cognitive development.
“Our ambition is to reach 2,500 metric tonnes this year,” he added.
The latest procurement builds on the programme’s achievements in 2025, when WFP purchased more than 1.95 million kilogrammes of locally produced food, benefiting approximately 22,500 farmers through smallholder aggregators and injecting nearly US$2 million into the rural economy.
UN Resident Coordinator Seraphine Wakana described the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme as “a powerful example of integrated development in action,” linking education, nutrition, agriculture, livelihoods and resilience.
For farmers, the programme provides a guaranteed market for their produce. Isata Feika Sesay, Chairlady of the Takeleneh Farmers Association in Kambia, said WFP’s support has given her community “confidence to invest more in production because we know there is a market for what we grow”.
The initiative forms part of the Government’s Feed Salone strategy, which seeks to reduce Sierra Leone’s reliance on imported rice and build a resilient food system in which local farmers can produce enough food to feed Sierra Leonean families.
