Urban agriculture, practiced at the micro level on university campuses can help not only educate students about nutrition but also provide them with food as they struggle to deal with the cost of living.
UNSW’s Sophia Lin and colleagues from UNSW and Macquarie have published new perspectives about the potential of campus food gardens to alleviate the hunger of students while also helping them learn how to feed themselves.
There is a “growing phenomenon of hunger in affluent nations among vulnerable groups, such as university students,” the authors note.
“Universities recognise food insecurity as a major student welfare issue but have traditionally limited interventions to providing emergency food relief, vouchers for basic foods, temporary fiscal support.” While useful, these are not sustainable, so the authors looked at opportunities to improve food literacy of students while also feeding them through campus food gardens.
Research with Australian students had previously indicated that low levels of nutrition education often correlated with low food security. Produce from food gardens used by canteens on campus could help lower food costs for staff and students, and universities with large areas of underutilised land were in a strong position to build up campus gardens.
The researchers found relatively little research on urban agriculture and the potential environmental and social benefits of growing food in urban locations were being overlooked by universities and governments alike.
“Campus gardens exemplify a transformation-focused approach to education, appropriate for students at a formative stage of their lives,” the authors conclude.
“Universities that are serious about teaching SDG 2, as well as meeting its targets for their own populations, would do well to support and fund campus gardens.”
