The Special Fund for Equipment and Intercommunal Intervention (Feicom) launched last week a project to promote agriculture and farming in Cameroonian schools. As a result, 80 primary schools in the Far North, North, Adamaoua, East, and South regions have been selected to benefit from the “Green Classes" initiative.

Philippe Camille Akoa, MD of Feicom, said: “It is the opportunity to teach young children the principles of a healthy and balanced diet through the consumption of food that they have produced themselves”. The goal is to combat hunger and malnutrition through the promotion of a healthy diet especially in schools located in crisis-affected regions. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) committed to supporting the project valued at CFA776 million. "School-age children need a good diet to develop and grow properly, to be able to study, to have strong health and enough energy to face the day. For their benefit and that of their future children, they not only need to eat correctly but also know how to grow their food,” the UN body said.

In Cameroon, 2.7 million people suffer from food and nutritional insecurity. The situation is particularly concerning in the northern and eastern regions, where 35.9% and 35.4% of children respectively suffer from chronic malnutrition, according to the Nutritional anthropometric and retrospective mortality survey (Smart 2018). Data also showed that over 31% of children under the age of 5 experience stunted growth.