Written by: Lindsay Corbin, Coordinator (NS Advisory to the CHSF) and Lisa Roberts, Executive Director (Nourish NS)

Students selecting lunch items from a salad bar in a Berwick school

Champions of school food programs cheered on Wednesday when the interim Deputy Minister of Education told MLAs on the Public Accounts committee that Nova Scotia is “actively working on the development of a universal lunch program that would be free to all children, universally available.”

This wonderful news goes beyond the recommendations of the recent Auditor General’s report on Healthy Eating in Schools. It also lines up with what is happening federally, where Ministers Karina Gould and Marie-Claude Bibeau have been mandated to “develop a National School Food Policy and work towards a national school nutritious meal program.” Part of their work towards this includes consultations, which began with provinces and territories this summer and will be expanding to a series of roundtables starting next week.

But it’s worth also noting what Rosalind Penfound said next - “Part of what we are doing is costing that.”

Hopefully the federal officials that the Department of Education met with “as recently as last Friday,” according to Penfound, shared that they’re funding research to do just that – including three case studies in Atlantic Canada – to inform the 2023 federal budget.

Students at Kings County Acadeny enjoying a baked potato lunch from the Local Food Lunch Toolkit

These exciting glimmers of a positive future for school food do not change the present-day reality in which the dedicated school food budget per student in Nova Scotia is less than $20 per year. Yes, many schools fundraise to increase that budget, including by selling Nourish Your Roots produce boxes. But not all school communities have parents able to volunteer or neighbours able to support fundraisers. Nourish recognized this, and the pressure of inflation on food budgets at both home and school, by establishing the Nova Scotia School Food Fund; contributions from individuals and companies will be distributed across public schools in December.

Hunger hinders learning. Nova Scotians have been reassured that children who come to school hungry will be fed but we know, from research and experience, that older children will not self-identify as needing food. In one family – with five children in the school system – only the younger children regularly seek out food. This is the impact of stigma, and the reason why universal programs are so important.

A successful school lunch program does not need to be free. Both in Prince Edward Island and in St. John’s, Newfoundland, lunches are paid for on-line and only parents (or in some cases, principals) know what price they paid. Pay-what-you-can means everybody eats.

When we ensure universal access to food at school - like we have, albeit imperfectly, with breakfast - and aim for universal participation, we can also embrace all the other benefits of healthy school food. Students can learn food skills and gain volunteer experience. Having food available helps to make school a supportive, inclusive space which facilitates learning. There are positive economic spinoffs in our communities – including revenue for local farmers and decent wages and professional development for food service workers.

Nourish and the Coalition for Healthy School Food (CHSF) – endorsed by community health boards and municipalities and teachers – would love to celebrate a school food “win” in Nova Scotia. For now, the CHSF is busy informing the conversations happening provincially and federally, including with research-based principles and best practices. And Nourish is busy supporting the folks working in school food today – out of cafeterias or broom closets, in large schools and small – as they try to feed children and youth so they can live, play and learn.

The Right Recipe for Universal Access to Food at School