FG feeds pupils with 594 cows, 138,000 chickens, 6.8m eggs weekly

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the federal government feeds school pupils with 594 cowa, 138,000 chickens, 6.8 million eggs and 83 metric tons of fish every week.

He disclosed this yesterday while delivering a lecture at the University of Lagos’ 50th convocation. He said at $0.19 per child per day, the government provided a balanced meal for every one of the 9,300,892 million pupils in 49,837 public primary schools in 26 states.

The school feeding programme, according to him, employs 95,422 cooks and over 100,000 small holder farmers.

He said:

“As you can imagine, the quantity of starch and vegetables required for this programme on a weekly basis is equally impressive. Dietary energy and nutrients with established links to cognition-carbohydrates, protein, fat, iron and iodine as well as minerals with public health importance – are targeted by the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSF).

“The programme aims to provide 50% of the recommended nutrient intake targets for protein and prioritized micro-nutrients including iron, iodine, zinc, vitamin A, folate and vitamin C and 30% of energy because of the high burden of under-nutrition and micro-nutrient deficiencies in Nigeria.

“There is also a de-worming programme attached to the school feeding programme.”