May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Rising food prices have led to deadly riots in fledging democracies such as Haiti and caused World Bank President Robert Zoellick to project that 100 million more people will fall into poverty.

Among the casualties of the food crisis will be the schooling of millions of the world's poorest children. The connection is as simple as a school lunch. Ensuring that children get a free meal at school not only is a powerful tool for combating malnutrition for 350 million hungry kids, it is also one of the best education strategies.

Studies have shown that children who are fed at school have increased concentration, stronger short-term memory, increased verbal fluency and improved cognition.

An International Food Policy Research Institute evaluation of Bangladesh in 2003 found that overall achievement test scores in schools with feeding programs rose 15.7 percent, with a 28 percent increase in mathematics scores. A 1989 Jamaican study found that providing breakfast to primary-school pupils significantly increased both attendance and arithmetic scores, with children who were stunted or previously malnourished benefiting the most.

Beyond improved learning, school feeding can also work as an incentive to get extremely poor parents to enroll many of the 72 million children and 226 million teens who aren't attending school in developing countries. Each year in school may lead to a wage increase of 10 percent or more when a child enters the workforce. But parents coping with extreme poverty often find the immediate costs of paying for school, as well as the opportunity costs (lower family income and less help fetching firewood or water and caring for sick or young relatives) too burdensome.

Girls Penalized

It is often girls who are left out of school due to reliance on them for family chores and because in some cultures, parents under-invest in daughters since they are expected to marry and enter their husbands' families. The best way to improve the cost- benefit analysis for such impoverished parents is to eliminate school fees, lower the costs of school uniforms and reduce the time spent traveling to and from school.

A small incentive -- such as a free school lunch or being able to bring home a bag of rice -- can also have a powerful impact on encouraging such poor parents to enroll their sons and daughters in school.

The World Food Program finds that during a school-feeding program's first year, average enrollment increases by 28 percent for girls and 22 percent for boys. In Niger, schools with feeding programs saw enrollment increases of 66 percent for girls and 23 percent for boys. During 2005, Rwandan schools with feeding programs saw attendance rise from 73 percent to 94 percent, while absenteeism was halved and dropout rates were cut by more than two-thirds.

Surging Prices

While the WFP tries to find $3 billion more annually to provide school feeding to all poor children, the organization's vice president, Nancy Roman, recently told me that the WFP needed $750 million just to prevent a significant cut in existing school feeding programs amid a 55 percent increase in prices for rice, wheat, cereals, and legumes last year.

In the absence of such emergency increases, the cuts have already started.

Rations for school meals have been reduced by 20 percent to 230,000 Somali and Sudanese refugees living in camps in remote areas of northeast Kenya in order to extend the program for a few more months, says Tesema Negash, WFP Kenya country director.

In Cambodia, listed in the International Food Policy Research Institute's 2006 Global Hunger Index as one of 12 ``hunger hot spot'' countries, WFP will suspend school feeding to 450,000 children beginning in May unless new funding can be found.

Gains Undone

Gains made in enrollment and attendance will undoubtedly be lost in these countries as studies show a tendency to reverse once school-feeding programs are discontinued.

This isn't a problem where it is hard to figure out the solution: We need to provide more food aid and we need to make sure it is delivered in a way that continues to strengthen school-feeding programs.

In the long-run, the U.S. needs to pass the Education for All Act to take funding for universal basic education for poor children in developing nations up to $3 billion a year by 2012 and commit its share to the WFP vision of a school lunch for every hungry child.

In the immediate term, the administration and the House- Senate conference committee working on the farm bill have the opportunity to ensure the U.S. is doing its part. They could agree to emergency action to relieve the current shortfall and to help make school-feeding programs more universal.

One place to start is by restoring and going beyond the $300 million funding for the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program signed by President Bill Clinton. That bill provided school meals to 9 million children in developing countries, but it was cut by two-thirds from 2002 to 2006. It is the least we can do.

(Gene Sperling, formerly President Bill Clinton's top economic adviser, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He is the director of the Center for Universal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is advising Hillary Clinton in her bid for the 2008 presidential nomination. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Gene Sperling in Washington at gsperling@cfr.org

Last Updated: May 1, 2008 00:05 EDT