UBC students call for action amid rising food prices

Courtesy UBC Sprouts

Some UBC students are choosing between securing a roof over their head and eating, according to a student volunteer-run food cooperative.

Over the past five years, UBC student Gizel Gedik says she’s seen food prices on campus skyrocket.

Students are paying more for tuition and it’s leaving them with less money for essentials like food and housing, Gedik tells Daily Hive.

“We all know for a fact that housing and food are both essential needs that everyone has a right to and deserves and should be afforded with dignity,” she says. “But this has not happened at our university.”

This is why Gedik, who is also the co-president of UBC Sprouts, says, “when it comes to boiling it down to which one we’re gonna put first … for some students, it’s more important to have a roof over their head.”

Students rally, bring attention to food security crisis

Hundreds of students walked out of class Friday to bring attention to rising food prices and demand action.

Demonstrators rallied outside of the university president’s office, chanted, delivered speeches, and waved signs. Some posters read, “hungry for change,” “food is a human right,” and “I don’t want to sleep for dinner tonight.”

Courtesy UBC Sprouts

“This walkout and these cuts come at a time when food insecurity on campus is in a dire state. Food bank usage continues to skyrocket, 37% of UBC Vancouver students are food insecure, and food prices across Canada continue to inflate at alarming rates,” a statement from UBC Sprouts reads.

University responds to students’ demands

UBC Sprouts is calling on the university to meet five demands, including “the administration restore the promised funding, reopen the subsidized outlet Fooood, and implement a tuition freeze and living wages for all employees. [UBC Sprouts] also demand[‘s] more democratic and community control of food security resources and fair compensation to students operating food security initiatives.”

In a statement from Chief Student Health Officer Noorjean Hassam and Associate Vice President, Student Housing and Community Services Andrew Parr told Daily Hive that UBC is distributing $500,000 more to increase food security for students at the Vancouver and Okanagan campuses.

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Eighty-five percent of the funding will go to programs at UBC Vancouver.

Here is how the $425,000 will be allocated on campus:

UBC Meal Share program will receive $210,000
AMS Food Bank will receive $145,000
UBC Sprouts will receive $30,000
Acadia Food Hub will receive $25,000
and The Food Hub Market and its partner programs will receive $15,000

The rest of the funding ($75,000) will be for programs at the UBC Okanagan campus.

“This additional funding reflects UBC’s immediate and ongoing commitment to supporting students who are facing urgent food security-related needs. We recognize and appreciate that current inflationary and associated cost of living pressures, including the high cost of food, are challenges for our students, and that not having secure access to food has harmful impacts on their mental, physical, and social wellbeing, as well as their academic success and university experience,” Hassam and Parr add.

A long-term solution missing: UBC Sprouts

Gedik admits the additional funding is good news for students this year but emphasizes one time funding does not address the root of the problem.

“Providing one time funding when we get upset, or when the community demands more — we see this as hush money … because what’s going to happen to next year … when [students] have to go through this all over again and advocate for more money because it’s not sustained?

“[This funding is] not ongoing and also doesn’t meet the growing student enrolment or inflation rates. It is great for us this year, but it’s not useful in the long term to help sustain these food services on campus.”

Hassam and Parr note that funding for food insecurity initiatives were not reduced during this fiscal year.

“During the pandemic in 2020/21, one-time funding was provided in recognition of the extraordinary circumstances in which some students found themselves,” they add.

UBC says it is looking into long-term funding for food security-related needs.

“The administration has since pursued a long-term plan for addressing affordability in the Student Affordability Task Force report. The task force—composed of students, faculty, and staff—provided 10 recommendations for addressing affordability, including a $100 million fundraising initiative to support need-based aid and food security,” Hassam and Parr say.

About 300 students make up Sprouts and work on finding a solution to the food security crisis.

However, Gedik points out that these students are volunteers and emphasizes “student exploitation” should not be the solution to this crisis.

She is encouraging the university also to provide sufficient resources to compensate student workers “and not to perpetrate the cause of the crisis.”