Something that my years at UBC have opened my eyes to is the astounding privilege that I have grown up with. There are a lot of hardships that I will likely never have to experience, one of which is food insecurity. For those who are unaware with this terminology, as I myself was until a few weeks ago, food insecurity means being without reliable access to food.
These last couple weeks I have been participating in an interfaculty case competition discussing food insecurity on campus, and it has been yet another eye opening experience. 8.3% of the Canadian population is food insecure, but that percentage pales in comparison to the 39% of Canadian post-secondary students who don’t have reliable access to food (Lu et al, 2017). That 39% can be further broken down, as the rate is significantly higher among international students and students with dependents. However, despite the tremendous need for easily accessible and affordable food on campus, only 3% of students regularly access the foodbank. This discrepancy of resource use was something that I sought out to investigate.
In the process of creating an awareness campaign for one of our suggested programs, I completed around 20 brand association tests to become more aware of the ideas triggered by the term “food bank”. This is where I quickly became aware of the source of the AMS Food Bank’s low usage. Although I had an admittedly small sample size, the frequency of negative and stigmatizing terms was astonishing.
While there is no simple solution to food insecurity, there are a handful of ways that the UBC community can work towards rescuing potential food waste and turning it into affordable, dignified options. The daily food waste from the three residence halls is abominable (Lu et al, 2017), and it would be economical and environmentally conscious for UBC to implement a dynamic pricing model to help decrease this waste. Sure, that solution isn’t perfect, and neither were the other solutions that our team came up with for the case, but they are certainly better than nothing. 39% is far too high a number for the institution to take no action.
References
Lu, J., Kwan, W., Annejohn, M., Brown, A. & Tran, E. (2017). Implementation of a food recovery program at UBC. SEEDS Sustainability Program.
sining wang
February 8, 2021 — 4:40 pm
I participated in the Taste Not Waste competition and learned new things about campus food security. We found out that many restaurants, cafes, and grocery stores on campus such as Porch, Blue Chips, and Save On Foods throw away a large amount of food that’s still perfectly fine daily. It’s an issue because while some people struggle to pay for their every meal, others are wasting it. I think that if universities want to address student food insecurity, they will have to recognize their role in addressing the income gap too. I would also love to hear your opinion!
BryceNiebuhr
February 23, 2021 — 3:23 pm
That’s a really interesting take! The issue really does lie in the income gap, but I don’t know how realistic it is to expect educational institutions to address. One of the recommendations our group made was to include our solutions in the applications for financial aid. This way it wasn’t a separate program that students would have to sign up for. Nonetheless, food insecurity is an issue that will require attention from all sides. Thanks for the comment!
JennahWahab
February 25, 2021 — 1:14 pm
Hi Bryce,
Thank you for writing a great, thought-provoking post!
I really liked that you brought up this issue of food insecurity at UBC – the reality of our food waste in residence halls really is shocking, and this is a significant issue faced by many students.
I wanted to share with you an initiative called “Seeder” at Enactus UBC! It’s a club I am involved with, and Seeder is actually a project targeted at addressing the food insecurity issue on campus. A group of students involved in this project partnered with UBC Food Services and Sprouts Cafe to repurpose food waste. Sprouts Cafe aims to make sustainable, healthy food accessible to everyone on campus (check out their website here!!: http://www.ubcsprouts.ca/). They actually run Community Eats every Friday in the basement of the Life Building (pre-pandemic) where students can have a nice, healthy lunch by donation!
The Seeder initiative allowed 1200 pounds of food to be repurposed into ~6000 meals to be served at Community Eats! I thought this would be worth sharing with you – let me know if you want to learn more about this, I can even connect you with the people that run/spear-headed this project! 🙂
Jennah
ElsaDoxtdatorJansson
March 31, 2021 — 2:15 pm
I just found out about the AMS foodbank this month actually! From my own personal experience, I thought the food bank was a way for students to help support the less fortunate off-campus. Then I met an individual who used it and began to severely struggle financially once they closed their doors at the beginning of covid. Demystifying the food bank, making their food distribution systems clear, and rebranding their imagine would do lots of good for their reach around campus.