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FOOD BANKS IN CANADA SEE 2.2 MILLION VISITS IN ONE MONTH

DARTMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA – OCTOBER 27, 2025 – 2025 has once again been a record-breaking year for food insecurity in Nova Scotia and across Canada.

Food Banks Canada’s HungerCount, a report on food bank usage across the country, was released this morning, with findings showing that in March of 2025 alone, food banks across the country saw 2.2 million visits. Nova Scotians accounted for 43,421 of those 2.2 million visits, a 10.3% increase since 2024.

“Nova Scotians deserve better,” says Ash Avery, executive director of Feed Nova Scotia. “Our communities deserve to be able to live a secure and dignified life, and that type of future is only possible with immediate and targeted government intervention.”

This year’s statistics showed that 24% of Nova Scotian food bank clients are employed, the highest amount on record, with another 40% relying on inadequate and outdated social supports. Almost half of all Nova Scotians who accessed food banks over the past year cited cost of food as the main reason for using a food bank, with another third stating the cost of housing and utilities as the reason for seeking support.

“With social assistance rates being lower than the poverty line, it’s no wonder that our neighbours have no choice but to turn to food support,” says Avery. “These numbers show that income and social assistance rates in Nova Scotia continue to fall far below the cost of living.”

Feed Nova Scotia is calling on provincial and federal governments to take urgent action to address poverty and inadequate income. The organization is asking for the provincial government to focus on immediate improvements to income assistance and tax credit programs, as well as the implementation of a basic income guarantee program. The organization is also calling on the federal government to repair Canada’s outdated social safety net: to modernize the Employment Insurance (EI) system by expanding support for precarious, gig, and self-employed workers, and to enhance the Canada Workers Benefit (CWB) and the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB).

“Charity is not the solution. More food will not solve food insecurity. We do not want to be back here next year with similar statistics. We need government intervention, at all levels, and we need it now.”

About Feed Nova Scotia:

Feed Nova Scotia is one of 10 provincial food associations in Canada, representing over 130 member organizations across the province. Since 1984, Feed Nova Scotia has been focused on providing high quality, nutritious food to the member organizations, while focusing on creating change at the systemic level. This includes collaboration through grants and community partnerships that focus on food distribution efficiency, community farming education, and advocacy projects.

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For more information, please contact:
Kenya Plut

Communications Coordinator

communications@feednovascotia.ca

Feed Nova Scotia and the network of members are located in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq Peoples, and we acknowledge them as past, present, and future caretakers of this land. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship” which Mi’kmaq, Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet), and Passamaquoddy Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. We are all Treaty people.

We acknowledge that African Nova Scotians have existed and persisted on the traditional land of the Mi’kmaq for more than 400 hundred years and their significant presence has contributed to the existence of Nova Scotia.

We are grateful to live and work in Mi’kma’ki.