Many Parkville students don't know that the University of Melbourne has a campus in Burnley, where the agricultural department is located. Even fewer know that this campus is the site of a small-scale social and environmental revolution. On this small, concealed plot of land beside the Yarra River, two Masters students have singlehandedly devised a food-growing project which addresses not only the issue of food insecurity faced by Parkville students, but the cultural displacement of international students at the University as well. 

In early 2025, Ian Adams and Thomas Li, the Burnley UMSU Officebearers, noticed that many fertile land plots on the Burnley Campus were going to waste—they were either empty of plants or overrun with unharvested produce or weeds. As part of Chris Williams' 'Food Production for Urban Landscapes' subject, each student receives a five-metre plot of land, which they get to maintain over the second semester, after the subject's conclusion. Tom explains to me that while "some students maintain that [plot of land]...some students…go back to their home countries, or they get busy, and a lot of these plots become quite wild." He and Ian realised that "there's a lot of food being produced at Burnley, through Chris' subjects and the campus in general, that is going to waste; so it seemed like common sense, really, that the obvious thing to do was to reduce this food waste, harvest or glean the food that his being produced at the Burnley campus and redistribute it to students who don't have the time, the money, the know-how or the social relations to get fresh food."

And this was how the Grown for Students, By Students project was born. Tom and Ian harvested the produce that had already grown, and wasn't going to be harvested, from these plots of land. They then hand-delivered it to Union Mart, the Parkville campus' food bank. Ian, smiling, tells me that this was one of the "inspiring moments" for him, "seeing people's faces light up [as tray loads of food] get delivered to them, almost out of the blue."

From here, the project grew: Ian and Tom, and a team of student volunteers, began not only harvesting excess produce at Burnley, but also growing it themselves. They conducted surveys and one-on-one conversations with students about what produce to grow. Tom tells me that "a lot of the food [requested by student] was pretty standard…like broccoli, leafy greens, lettuce, spinach, chillies. But some students want okra, skinny eggplant…these kinds of foods are not so accessible at regular supermarkets." As Tom related these findings, it occurred to me that not only are these vegetables inaccessible at supermarkets, but that even if they were, supermarkets themselves might be financially inaccessible for the students who are obtaining their food through Union Mart.

This is what makes Tom and Ian's initiative so inspiring. They began to grow rayo ko saag, sweet potato leaves, kankung—making food that's already physically scarce in Melbourne accessible to students for free.

Tom earnestly shared stories of how students have reacted to this produce. One time last year, he observed the reaction to a delivery of sugarcane: "students were just really fascinated. Like some students went 'I've never seen sugar in this form, in the cane form,' whereas some students would be like 'oh, wow, I haven't had this since I was a child.'" He remembered them standing in small groups, explaining to each other how to eat it, by making an incision in the bark before removing the outer husk and chewing the inside. Tom remarks that when students are asked what foods they want to see at Union Mart, they often think of nutritional value or necessity. But the way that the students reacted to the sugarcane delivery led him to realise that "social relations that are formed by foods which don't just hold nutritional value" are overlooked but crucial and deeply meaningful as well, offering a "historical or cultural connection to the students' home country" which then enables students to connect with one another.

A delivery of sweet potato leaves resulted in a similar reaction: Tom remembers them "sharing their home cultural traditions," with one student describing how their mother would cook the leaves, and another sharing that their auntie would harvest and sell them. Tom remarks that "in the context of a food bank," which can be an "almost shameful environment," the importation of culturally significant produce transforms the space into a "lightning rod for social connection and sharing…which elevates food relief to a different level, I think." 

I was struck by the beauty of this; organic moments of connection, spontaneously arising in a typically shameful and individualist environment, thanks to the culturally significant produce Tom and Ian, and their team, grow and deliver to Parkville. From the stories they share with me, it's clear that this moment of delivery, of recognition, offers students not only a way to reconnect with their own cultural roots, but also to connect with those of other students—using their personal memories as a point of connection, allowing for the forging of interpersonal bonds as well as the validation and collection of cultural memories. You wouldn't think that all of this could be facilitated by a delivery of sweet potato leaves—but clearly that's all it takes sometimes to break down the barriers of social stigma in an environment like a food bank, and spark conversations while doing so.

And the benefits don't only lie with the students who receive the produce. Tom notes that a key part of the project is to "provide a green space, just a nice outdoor space [for students] to hang out and do gentle work with plants and weeding and that kind of stuff…a few of our volunteers have really enjoyed the opportunity to head out to Bernie, be around and love the garden." The 'by students' of the title reflects an integral aspect of the project—giving students the opportunity to garden, a rarity in a modern urban environment like Melbourne. Volunteers get to experience the uniquely mindful, peaceful activity that is spending time in the garden, but in a way that's especially rewarding, and which reminds them of the interdependence between humans and nature.

The other day I decided to visit the Burnley Campus myself. It was a freezing cold Sunday morning; I wandered down various paths, circling the nursery, classrooms and garden plots. I saw two people as I entered, but a few minutes later they were gone—I felt entirely alone, entirely isolated from the rest of the city's population for fifteen minutes. I stood beside a patch of kale and tried to imagine what it would feel like to come here early in the morning and water the seedlings, returning a few weeks later to pull the plants gently out of the soil. For a brief moment the sun came out, and I felt a desire to spend the whole day here, to tend to the plants around me in the cold.

I often discuss the challenges of maintaining links to one's culture as a second or third generation immigrant with my dad, who emigrated from Sri Lanka as a child. He can barely speak the language that his ancestors spoke—he can cobble together a few sentences if he needs to, but is far from fluent. He's learning, however, to cook an increasing number of Sri Lankan dishes. I can't speak a word of Tamil, but I'm trying to inherit my grandmothers' recipes. My dad and I agree that the loss of language amongst children of immigrants is inevitable, but that food remains a viable means of intergenerational cultural transmission. But standing in the Burnley Campus gardens, I wonder if gardening could be an equally beautiful and lasting means of maintaining links to one's culture—maintaining one's roots.

As the child of two immigrants, I've seen the excitement on my dad's face as he showed my sister and I how to eat a mangosteen—interlocking his fingers and holding the fruit between his hands, squeezing his palms together until the hard, wooden exterior cracked open. I've seen my mum and grandmother excitedly stop the car to buy a fresh coconut off a roadside seller, so that we could try drinking the coconut water straight from the fruit. These moments are privileges only afforded to us during holidays in Sri Lanka—althought we might occasionally chance upon a mangosteen or bittergourd in Melbourne, they're often expensive and imported, and don't taste fresh or anywhere near as delicious as those back home. This kind of produce also wasn't available at all in Australia when my grandparents and parents first migrated here. They would have benefited immensely from an initiative like Tom and Ian's.

Luckily for my grandparents and parents, however, they migrated with their families and friends. As a result, they could build diasporic communities in Australia which allowed for the preservation and circulation of culture through food, language and the recreation of their pre-migration lifestyles. For many international students at the University of Melbourne, this is not the case. They've come here alone, uprooted from their families and cultures and marooned in the isolating, homogenising (or at the very least, disorienting) environment of university, instead of a microcosm of their home country, which my grandparents and parents moved into. The produce provided by the Grown for Students, By Students project is a welcome intrusion into this culturally sterilised environment which such a large proportion of international students inhabit, offering a small dose of comfort and familiarity while also being a genuine means of social and financial aid. Ian and Tom are transforming Union Mart from a place that helps international students to survive, to one that helps them to live, to feel at home while they're away from it.

But in a more long term sense, I hope that, whether they interact with Ian and Tom's project by receiving produce or growing it, some international or migrant students who settle in Australia after their studies come to see gardening and culturally significant produce as a means of maintaining a link to their culture, as well as to nature, throughout their lifetimes, and subsequently passing this ritual down to future generations. I hope there's one student out there who plants a rayo ko saag seed on a plot of land at the Burnley Campus, and ends up teaching their children and grandchildren how to grow it decades later, when language has been lost and their home country is a distant memory.

If you're interested in heading to the Burnley Campus to do some planting for the Grown for Students project, reach out to Ian and Tom via email or Instagram! @umsuburnley, burnley@union.unimelb.edu.au.