Our Study

This research project began as an inquiry into food insecurity within the Binghamton area and community. Many people are already aware of the fact that Binghamton is what is considered a food desert. Because of this, we wanted to look into what provisions there are to combat this. Upon failed attempts to contact community organizations and through narrowing our project, we realized that there has been very little research conducted on what food insecurity looks like for students at the University, so we decided to investigate this and the provisions in place for students.

It is no secret that Binghamton Students have been dissatisfied with the University's Food System for a while. Previously, in 2022, a petition had circulated advocating for a change in our current meal plan system as the one currently in place costs an average of $3,063 per semester and allocates a budget of around $10 per day. It also requires on-campus students to buy into meal plans despite their specific food needs. Comments on this petition that reflected student opinion on the meal plan included "I should not have to choose between my health and spending money I don't have [on] food" and "the system we have in place [right now] is making me not eat until I'm full and choose the unhealthier items [because] they are cheaper. I also don't eat enough meals a day."

However, we also know that there are a number of organizations on-campus that play into the food system, including those which try to make food more accessible especially to those in need like the food pantry. Because of these factors, our study set out to find the bigger picture of food insecurity at Binghamton University through gathering the student perspective and the perspective of organizations involved in the food system.

For more information on food insecurity, especially at the college level, check out the Food Insecurity tab.

Survey

We distributed an online survey for students to answer questions we had organized around the various facets of food insecurity, their personal experiences with the campus's food system, and their awareness of the resources here. This gave us the data on the student end about what extent food insecurity is an issue at the University.

Interviews

We conducted interviews with multiple individuals from various campus organizations including the Food Pantry, BU Acres, and Sodexo. This gave us insight into the University's perspective on food security and what they were specifically doing to make food at the University more accessible. We also interviewed a student to get more qualitative insight into how students perceive the current system.

Meetings 

Because of the potential for outside organizations and clubs to be involved in providing food security, we decided to attend a few meetings, as well. We attended events hosted by Binghamton 2 Degrees, a local sustainability initiative group, as well as a meeting with the Sustainability Hub, which is an opportunity for students working on sustainability groups or projects to come together and share what they're working on.