Students across Iowa State University teamed up to tackle food insecurity in the second annual Food Insecurity Challenge. The competition, hosted by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the Ivy College of Business and the Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship, aims to teach undergraduate and graduate students about the multitude of issues those who are food insecure face by challenging them to find reachable solutions.  

The competition, co-organized and led by Judi Eyles, director of the Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship, and her team, kicked off on Nov. 6 with a Hunger Banquet held in the Student Innovation Center’s Stepatorium, where over 100 students from every college learned about the realities of food insecurity at Iowa State, in Iowa and worldwide. Participants were randomly divided into high-, low- and middle-income groups, which determined what type of meal they received. High-income students received a pasta buffet, middle-income students received beans and rice, and low-income students received only rice.

"Understanding food insecurity as a concept is one thing,” said Carmen Bain, associate dean of academic innovation. “It's another to be sitting, holding a cup of rice while someone else is sitting next to you at an all-you-can-eat buffet. The hunger banquet really helps to put what we are trying to do into perspective."

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