Growing Solutions to Food Insecurity on College Campuses

The pandemic has disproportionately worsened the disparities in access that low-income, racially minoritized, and other marginalized individuals regularly face in health care, housing, and food security. In the midst of global crisis, many students made the difficult choice to leave college, seeking to reduce expenses, take care of their families, and prioritize work during this time of need. However, even prior to the pandemic and continuing in its wake, a pervasive issue persisted on campuses across the nation: food insecurity among college students.

In 2021, one in seven community college students reported not eating because they lacked money for food and nearly one-third reported running out of food. Going without adequate nutrition may keep students from achieving their academic goals due to increased stress, less sleep, and low energy. Some colleges are turning to on-campus farms and gardens. Two examples of initiatives–one in a large city, the other in a rural area–demonstrate how colleges can use creative solutions to promote better access to fresh food and cultivate new skills for their students.

We/Me Farm at Paul Quinn College

Southern Dallas has been federally recognized as a ‘food desert,’ but a local college has been working to address food access needs in an innovative way for nearly 15 years. A private HBCU in the city serving 384 undergraduate students, Paul Quinn College took the unusual step of converting the campus football field into a farm in 2010. Thirteen years later, the We/Me Farm has so far produced 30,000 pounds of organic produce and continues to provide an array of benefits to the campus and the surrounding community.

The college donates a minimum of 15 percent of the farm’s produce to food banks, the on-campus cafe, local churches, and other nonprofit organizations. The rest is shared with the campus community directly or sold to local buyers, such as restaurants and even the food service vendor for the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium. Student workers, with the help of the farm manager, operate and maintain the farm by engaging in all farm activities, from business planning to marketing, hence providing them with invaluable experience. As a service to the community, the farm is also a space that offers practical education to all community members to promote nutrition and facilitate food access.

Center for Educational & Agricultural Development at Piedmont Community College

A public community college located in rural North Carolina, Piedmont Community College (PCC) serves around 1,200 students. PCC and Caswell County jointly created the Center for Educational & Agricultural Development (CEAD) as a way of increasing the rural county’s economic development and investing in its resilient farming community. The center is the future home of Piedmont Community College’s Agribusiness Technology Program, aiming to educate students and the community on agribusiness practices and incubate local food and agriculture enterprises to build thriving rural economies and food systems. Students participating in CEAD programs learn such skills as hydroponics, pest management, and farm business management.

The first of Piedmont’s three phase project includes a Food Hub in partnership with 4P Foods, a food products supplier that delivers products direct from local farmers to neighborhoods and businesses and incubator farm plots available for PCC’s Agribusiness Technology students and community members. Many local farmers are already supplying 4P Foods with local, Caswell County-grown products that are sent all over the region. A large share of produce from PCC’s agriculture department is donated to local organizations to promote food security and access to produce. To date, more than 20,000 pounds of sweet potatoes have been donated to the Caswell Parish's community food bank.

Exciting developments are on the horizon for PCC and CEAD. In the next project phase, the college will construct an education building that will also house a health clinic, providing improved access to health care and additional clinical space for PCC students in health professions programs. The aim is to integrate access to healthy food and health care for county residents.

What Other Colleges Interested in Campus Agriculture Can Do

We spoke to leaders from Paul Quinn and Piedmont CC about the advice they would offer to peers at other institutions considering campus agriculture:

Let your mission guide you. Dr. Jennifer Vidrine, Vice President of Academic Affairs at Paul Quinn, recommends building strong internal cohesion and a shared vision to make on-campus agriculture successful. She says, “Make sure you understand your mission, and make sure that everyone is aware and in agreement about the mission…Prioritize institutional processes at the beginning that will support the farm as it expands over time.”

Partnerships are paramount. Both Dr. Vidrine and Emily Buchanan, Caswell County Operations Director for Piedmont CC, advise focusing on building and sustaining partnerships with people and organizations that support the college’s vision for their agriculture initiatives. “Remember that it’s a partnership,” Emily says. “I can’t stress this enough: community, community, community!”

Build on existing community agriculture. Colleges launching agriculture projects likely aren’t the first to take such a path to improve food security in the community. Both leaders we spoke to highlighted the need to recognize and build alongside the work of others. Paul Quinn specifically built connections with other organizations in the area focused on organic agriculture. At Piedmont CC, Emily notes how important it has been to know the local landscape well to best serve students and build the CEAD program: “Agriculture is about connecting the dots between community needs (fresh, healthy food and new skills) to assets that already exist (established farms, young entrepreneurs, available farmland, etc.).”

These two examples clearly illustrate that colleges can create sustainable solutions that address communal food insecurity in both rural and urban settings. These colleges provide critical access points to higher education and also have the power to provide affordable, nutritious produce to students and the broader community. Both Paul Quinn and Piedmont’s food and agriculture initiatives provide employment opportunities for students and local residents and are environmentally sustainable. These two institutions show that for some colleges, a core solution to food insecurity is to grow their own.