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From Regenerative Farms to School Plates: How the GAIN Jack Bean Tempeh Initiative is Building a New Food System Model in Aceh 

By Ibnu Budiman Date: Friday, July 31st, 2026

What if a traditional Indonesian food could simultaneously improve soil health, increase farmer incomes, reduce dependence on imported commodities, and provide nutritious meals for school children? 

In Aceh, the GAIN Jack Bean Tempeh Initiative is demonstrating exactly that. The project is pioneering a model that connects regenerative agriculture, local food processing, and school meal procurement into a single value chain that benefits farmers, enterprises, students, and the environment.  

Reviving an Indigenous Legume 

At the centre of the initiative is jack bean (Canavalia ensiformis), a drought-tolerant indigenous legume that has been largely overlooked in modern food systems. Unlike many commercial crops, jack bean thrives in challenging conditions and naturally fixes nitrogen in the soil, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers.  

By promoting jack bean as a locally sourced raw material for tempeh production, the project is creating new opportunities to diversify Indonesia's protein sources while strengthening agricultural resilience. Around 400 farmers in 85 hectares land are being supported to cultivate jack bean using regenerative agriculture practices such as intercropping and crop rotation, helping improve soil fertility, increase biodiversity, and reduce production costs.

Jack beans were cultivated with intercropping approach, with more than 15 other commodities such as maize, cassava, banana, and horticulture crops. Several farmers are practicing organic or pesticides free cultivation.  

Building a Farm-to-School Supply Chain 

A key achievement of the project has been the development of an operational model that links smallholder farmers directly to Indonesia's Free Nutritious Meals Programme (Makan Bergizi Gratis/MBG).

Under this model, farmers sell jack beans to local processing enterprises—a youth-led businesses—which transform the crop into nutritious jack bean tempeh and blended jack bean–soy tempeh products. These products are then supplied to central kitchens and Nutrition Fulfilment Service Units (SPPG) responsible for preparing meals under the MBG programme. GAIN and INOPI (the enterprise partner) are currently supplying jack bean tempeh to two SPPG in Aceh.  

 

The model works through a series of interconnected actors:  
 

 

 

Figure 1 Supplying jack bean tempeh to SPPG or central kitchens for school meals 

This creates a reliable institutional market for farmers while ensuring that schoolchildren receive nutritious, culturally familiar meals based on locally sourced ingredients.  

School feeding

Better Food for Students

The initiative demonstrates how local food systems can contribute to improving meal quality in school feeding programmes. Currently, the two central kitchens are supplying to 16 schools in Aceh.

Jack bean tempeh served as part of a school meal
Figure 2 Jack bean tempeh in the school meal
School meal programme in Aceh
Figure 3 School meal programs in Aceh

Tempeh is already widely accepted and consumed in Indonesia, making it an ideal ingredient for school meals. Jack bean tempeh and blended jack bean–soy tempeh provides a nutritious plant-based protein that is rich in protein and produced through fermentation, helping diversify protein sources while maintaining taste and consumer acceptance.

By integrating locally sourced tempeh into MBG menus, the project supports more diverse and balanced diets while strengthening local food economies.

Environmental Benefits Beyond the Farm

Because jack bean is a nitrogen-fixing legume, its cultivation can improve soil fertility and reduce dependence on synthetic fertilizers. Farmers also benefit from lower input costs and improved long-term soil health. Approximately 10 tonnes of biologically fixed nitrogen per year generated through 85 hectares of jack bean intercropping managed by 400 farmers, equivalent to about 22 tonnes of urea fertilizer.

The initiative also contributes to climate resilience. Jack bean is drought-tolerant and can be grown on marginal lands, making it suitable for areas increasingly affected by climate variability. Increased adoption can enhance agricultural biodiversity, improve land productivity, and strengthen the resilience of farming systems.

Another important benefit is the reduction of dependence on imported soybeans. By partially substituting imported soybean inputs with locally produced jack beans, the project helps reduce supply-chain emissions, strengthen food sovereignty, and support more localized food systems.

Creating Economic Opportunities

For farmers, jack bean creates an additional income stream from a previously underutilized crop while diversifying sources of revenue and reducing exposure to climate and market shocks. The crop can also be cultivated on marginal lands, increasing returns from available farmland.

Local processing enterprises benefit as well. Women- and youth-led businesses are producing jack bean tempeh and value-added products for schools, retailers, and consumers. This creates opportunities for entrepreneurship, job creation, processing, packaging, distribution, and marketing.

The project is currently supporting approximately 400 smallholder farmers while establishing a sustainable market link between regenerative agriculture and institutional food procurement.

Food-system transformation

A Model for Food System Transformation

The GAIN Jack Bean Tempeh Initiative shows how regenerative agriculture can be directly connected to nutrition outcomes through market-based mechanisms. By linking farmers, processors, school meal providers, and students, the project is creating a practical model that delivers environmental, economic, and nutritional benefits simultaneously.

More importantly, it demonstrates that indigenous crops such as jack bean can play a meaningful role in building resilient local food systems—supporting farmers, improving diets, and contributing to Indonesia's broader goals for food security, climate resilience, and sustainable development.

A key barrier to scaling regenerative school meal programs is limited awareness and acceptance among policy makers and students, who may be unfamiliar with regenerative agriculture and therefore place greater value on food appearance, taste, and familiarity rather than its environmental or sustainability benefits. Without targeted nutrition and food-system education, students may be less willing to consume foods sourced from regenerative farming systems or underutilized crops such as jack bean. Policy and institutional barriers also remain significant, including the absence of procurement guidelines that prioritize regenerative products, inadequate financial incentives for farmers, weak integration of regenerative agriculture into school feeding policies, and limited mechanisms for recognizing environmental co-benefits such as soil health improvement, biodiversity enhancement, and greenhouse gas emission reductions. Addressing these barriers requires a combination of student awareness campaigns, nutrition education, market development, public procurement reforms, and policy incentives that reward both farmers and schools for contributing to healthier and more sustainable food systems.

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