Burlington Standard

Today, the University of Vermont’s Board of Trustees voted to approve the creation of the university-wide Institute for Agroecology (IFA) — a new institute based in the Office of the Vice President for Research and the Office of Engagement — seeking to serve the entire UVM community, as well as engage the wider public.  

The IFA is an ambitious response to the growing calls to transform the world’s food systems in the pursuit of equity, sustainability, and wellbeing through a globally connected, locally rooted approach. The institute will allow UVM to crystalize its research, learning, and outreach in agroecology and food systems transformations through campus-community partnerships, new signature programs, and by providing resources and support for aligned projects. All of this will add capacity to existing initiatives and facilitate processes that will contribute toward, leverage, and expand UVM’s land-grant mission.  

The institute will integrate over a decade of research and international partnerships established by the Agroecology and Livelihoods Collaborative (ALC), a community of practice at UVM that works with partners around the world to co-create new solutions to global food systems challenges. Through the strengthening of its wide-ranging global networks and programs, the institute will also boost UVM’s international reputation for cutting-edge transdisciplinary and participatory research. 

For years, the ALC has partnered with local coffee growers in El Salvador, Mexico, and other nations to study their social, economic, and environmental roles in their respective regions. Agroecologists are drawn to coffee agriculture in large part because these shaded agroforestry systems express many social and ecological agroecological principles. 

“Our food system is in crisis. We can no longer deny that the current model is exploitative of both human and natural resources, and unable to sustain and nourish the world,” Ernesto Méndez said. “Agroecology offers an alternative paradigm for food and farming that will build back agricultural biodiversity, confront the climate crisis, address inequity and activate the power of farmers and citizens through transformations that aim for a thriving society and planet.” Méndez will serve as the IFA’s faculty director.

The IFA will benefit from UVM's newly established Food Systems Research Center (FSRC), a collaboration between UVM and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service, the first USDA research station designed to study local and regional food systems and the farms and processors that contribute to sustainable, healthy environments and people. The FSRC provides competitive funding that supports researchers in both the IFA and the Gund Institute for Environment.

“UVM’s Institute for Agroecology will be a national and international lighthouse for agroecology and will further revolutionize our growing research enterprise,” Vice President for Research Kirk Dombrowski said. “The Institute will forge new connections between researchers, communities, students and farmers who will work together to push boundaries in impactful research, learning, and action. These new institutes and centers will synergize and strengthen UVM's collective and distinctive expertise in food systems research both here in Vermont and around the globe.”  

Original source can be found here.