The University of Victoria has officially declared its food services program sustainable and has accepted a platinum rating. But do they really deserve a gold star if they are not directly supporting student struggles to access fresh and nutritious food?
A recent survey conducted by the UVic Student Society reported that 63.8% of students are experiencing food insecurity. Another study showed that 43% of residents enrolled in on-campus meal plans experience food insecurity. Being food insecure directly impacts academic performance, mental well-being, health, and social function. These struggles compound to disproportionately affect international students, those coming from lower-income families, and ethnic minorities.
Food insecurity is rarely disassociated from other hardships. In the same study, 64% of food-insecure students also reported housing insecurity in the past 12 months. Rapid increases in housing costs have left students struggling to fit healthy food choices into modest monthly budgets. With tightened pockets from tuition, class materials, and additional student fees, students opt for cheap, processed foods associated with negative life-long health consequences.
The UVSS Student Food Bank relies on community donations and a small fraction of student fees to operate its services. However, they suffer from donation and volunteer fluctuation, limited accessibility, and stigma. Currently, the Food Bank and Free Store are seeing the highest rates of usage to date. Fed Up UVic has continued to advocate for additional funding, but no plans or even an acknowledgement of the rates of campus food insecurity have come from the present administration.
The UVic Campus Community Garden was able to provide over 900 pounds of food to the UVSS Food Bank in the 2023/2024 year. However, the garden struggles with both capacity and funding. The waitlist ranges from six months to three years to rent a plot, and demand is only increasing. The problem is that these initiatives are all student-affiliated or student-led, and thus UVic as an institution is not obligated to allocate any funding or support. This also means that UVic has no accountability for the success or failure of these programs.
This isn’t to say that UVic doesn’t have sustainable food service practices in place. It is simply to highlight that the institution has a responsibility to do more for its food-insecure students. UVic Dining Services continues to throw out tons of food that could feed people. A 2022 waste audit recorded almost 107,764 kg of organics to be sent to the landfill from campus.
UVic needs to prioritize waste diversion in the form of food donations. Donating excess or near-expiry food to the UVSS Food Bank would directly benefit the student community. A system could also be created to coordinate the pick-up of excess food items coming from campus-catered events. UVic’s excess food waste can feed people if they let it.
UVic should also fund initiatives that are already successful. Current student-led programs such as the Campus Community Garden (CCG) and Community Cabbage, who serve hot meals from reclaimed food, are both making a difference in the lives of the students they engage with. If UVic wants to support the student body, it needs to put its money where its mouth is by providing budgeted support for groups tackling food insecurity on campus. Direct, sustained institutional funding would allow these current successful programs to be scaled up and serve a wider range of students.
Student struggles for food insecurity are not going away anytime soon. As the cost of living keeps rising, students will tighten budgets to make ends meet. Unfortunately, consistent monetary struggles can lead to students dropping classes or pulling out of school altogether. If the university wants to wear the platinum sustainability badge, it needs to do something to address student health and wellness.
Sophie Sumner
Saanich
