Having two meals with meat every day at school has been a big change for He Xin, a second-grade student at a school in Delong county in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

He and 260,000 other students in the region are eligible to receive free breakfast and lunch every day as part of a new government initiative to improve nutrition for rural students.

The 16-billion-yuan (2.53 billion U.S. dollars) program was initiated in autumn 2011 and covers 680 poverty-stricken cities and counties in northwest China, allowing 26 million students to receive free meals for the duration of their compulsory education, which lasts from primary school to junior middle school in China.

"With the government's subsidies, each student is able to have one egg each morning and five lunches with both meat and vegetables each week," said Ma Jianshe, director of the student financial aid center of Delong's education bureau.

All 135 of Delong's primary schools have implemented the free meal program, he said.

Delong is one of seven counties in Xihaigu, a heavily impoverished region in Ningxia. For years, most of the region's students have had only a few pieces of steamed bread to eat for breakfast, arousing public concern about malnutrition.

"We felt quite relieved after my child told us that he can have free breakfast and lunch at school," said Ma Yanmei, He's mother.

She said her child is often hungry, as she and her husband must work far from home each day, adding that it is rare for their family to have meals with meat more than once a month.

The nutrition improvement project will have profound influence on Chinese education, particularly in rural regions, Ma said.

While providing nutritious food for the students remains the primary concern of local authorities, challenges have also arisen in ensuring the safety of the food.

To maintain food safety, some counties in Ningxia are requiring school officials to eat the same food as the students. The Delong county government has also introduced regular testing for food provided by local schools, according to Wang Yanming, principal of the county's Liancai Central Primary School.

"(The program) will lead to a series of new changes, as well as a revolution in rural school management in poverty-stricken regions," Ma said.