Food as a conduit for poverty reduction in Cape Coast Metropolitan Area

The concept of the School Feeding Programme as instituted by the Government ofGhana was to provide caterers in deprived communities with money, who in turn will purchase locally grown foodstuff, prepare it and feed them to kindergarten and primary school children in the community. A major requirement was for the caterers to spend 80% of the monies given them in the communities that accommodated the schools. The primary goal was to reduce hunger and malnutrition in the children, increase school enrolment and increase food production in the communities. This paper investigates and discusses the extent to which these objectives are being carried out by the caterers employed to do so with respect to the use of locally produced food and labour and the reasons behind their choices. Using a qualitative approach, an in-depth interview was conducted for eight caterers out of the eleven engaged in the school feeding programme in the Cape Coast Metropolitan Area. The results from the study revealed that, even though all the caterers were aware of the 80% clause, a bulk of the purchases and labour was acquired outside the communities that housed the schools. Availability and affordability were some of the reasons given for this pattern.