Back in March, the SFF advising team hosted “Searching for Jobs in SFF,” a Professional Development event aimed at sharing the nitty gritty details of what job-hunting in the field of sustainable agriculture and food systems looks like. Because Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems is an emerging field, there are so many directions and steps one can take to find and/or create good work for themselves.
We had a great turnout with about 20 students, peer advisor Alexeya O’Brien, and faculty members, including: Lisa Depiano, Sarah Berquist, John Gerber, Amanda Brown, and Nikki Burton. As a group, Sarah led us in an examination of relevant, current, professional opportunities across our four different concentrations in SFF (production, permaculture, food justice, agricultural education). We were lucky to hear from Amanda and Nikki about their experiences working in production, and what they look for when they are hiring…invaluable advice!
We then split up into focus areas, and did some small group analysis of two to three positions relevant to students’ current interest. Lisa led the permaculture group, Nikki led the production room, and Sarah and John led the Ag Ed/Food Justice group. As small groups, we discussed preferred and desired qualifications for different tiered positions. We identified reach positions, and made note of what type of experience we would need to gain, to obtain one of those reach positions in the future. Students brainstormed internships, and how to evaluate and advocate for fair pay while searching for an internship.
Lisa and John talked to us about the importance of building relationships, and our community involvement. While this was an event aimed at covering the nitty gritty of job searching, we took some time to think about our core values because as Sarah reminded us, “we do our best work when our work aligns with our values.” The combination of applying practical job-hunting skills, with an examination of what is truly important to us, resulted in a meaningful night of thinking about what the future holds post-graduation.
The nitty gritty nature of our workshop enabled students to take home some practical tools to help begin and organize their job hunt. Students left with a basic template to keep track of potential job opportunities, and a compilation of links to job databases with which SFF students have found success. The path post-college looks different for all SFFers, but having a conversation to know we are not alone in this process, and we have plenty of people to support us was a real benefit of this event. SFF faculty really care about their students, and our students really care about this work. The fact that students and faculty took time out of their busy schedules to come talk about jobs on a Wednesday evening on Zoom during dinner time is a testament to the caring and committed nature of both our students and teachers. Thanks for a great evening, SFF!
Last spring, we all plunged into a great unknown, as our university transitioned to be fully remote in response to COVID 19 and its risks. This fall, the Sustainable Food & Farming students are studying mostly remotely, though as you can imagine some aspects of farming just need to happen face-to-face. Only about 1000 students are living on our large campus while others live off campus, or at home, across the US and across the globe.
SFF Senior & Student Farmer, Toni Graca making bouquets for CSA pickup
Our flexibility, adaptability, and strategies for balance have all been put to the test. It has been amazing to see our students, instructors and staff show up, adapt, and engage in this new online way of being. Many students join our program because they are seeking HANDS ON LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES.
Students volunteer gleaning excess produce from the UMass Student Farm organized by UMass Permaculture
So, what does that look like right now? Many students have continued working at farms either in the Amherst area or local to their homes. About 11 students are still working at the UMass Student Farming Enterprise to maintain their 100+ share CSA. Check out this video made my SFF Junior & Student Farmer Isadora Harper to see what that looks like!
Student Farm crew, fall 2020
Other students are working at the UMass Agricultural Learning Center to raise and process chickens & lambs. Want to go on a virtual tour of the ALC? Check out this video!
Tom Mirabile, SFF Alum & ALC Staff helps faculty Nicole Burton move lambs onto fresh pasture. Can you feel the EXCITEMENT?!
Many if not all of our students are working on their requirements remotely in online courses.
Leila Tunnell & Jennifer Reese from Amherst School Gardens virtually visit Sarah Berquist’s Agricultural Leadership & Community Education class via Zoom
It isn’t what we signed up for but we are making the best of it. Farmers need to be flexible to respond to the ever-changing climate and challenges that emerge in growing food and raising animals. Food systems advocates need to be adaptable and creative in solving complex problems that are ever-present in the work required for transforming how we grow, distribute, process, market, and consume food. We are all being tested and growing our capacity to behold the challenges, injustice, and uncertainty of these times. Fortunately, we are in this together, though it might be hard to remember sometimes. We continue reminding each other how to keep hope alive, how much the world NEEDS farmers, leaders, organizers, stewards, teachers, and change agents, and how TOGETHER we are a part of building/rebuilding the more just and sustainable food system we know is possible.
SFF Student & Student Farmer Hannah Bedard being radiant during early morning sunflower harvest
World’s challenges demand science changes — and fast, experts say
The world has little use — and precious little time — for detached experts.
Systems integration means taking a holistic look at all interactions between human and natural systems across the world. Credit: Michigan State University
A group of scientists — each of them experts — makes a compelling case in this week’s Science Magazine that the growing global challenges has rendered sharply segregated expertise obsolete.
Disciplinary approaches to crises like air pollution, biodiversity loss, climate change, food insecurity, and energy and water shortages, are not only ineffective, but also making many of these crises worse because of counterproductive interactions and unintended consequences, said Jianguo “Jack” Liu, lead author of the paper “Systems Integration for Global Sustainability.” He also is Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability and director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) at Michigan State University (MSU).
“The real world is integrated,” Liu said. “Artificially breaking down the real world into separate pieces has caused many global problems. Solving these problems requires systems integration — holistic approaches to integrate various pieces of the real world at different organizational levels, across space and over time.”
Sustainability demands new methods
The paper’s authors, themselves with experience spanning agriculture, biodiversity, climate change, ecology, economics, energy, environment, food security, trade, water, and more, in essence paint a new paradigm of research that crosses boundaries among natural and social science disciplines, as well as other disciplines such as engineering and medical sciences.
Using examples that are both far-flung and tightly intertwined, these scientists show how systems integration can tackle the complex world, from unexpected impacts of biofuels to hidden roles of virtual resources such as virtual water.
The paper’s first illustration wraps Brazil, China, the Caribbean and Saharan Africa into an example of how the world demands to be approached not just for its singular qualities, but for its lack of boundaries over time, distance or the organizational levels humankind imposes.
The rapidly growing food export to China from Brazil destroys tropical forests and changes food markets in other parts of the world, including the Caribbean and Africa. Agricultural practices in the Sahara Desert in Africa stir up dust which enters the atmosphere and floats as far as the Caribbean. That African dust has been shown to contribute to coral reef decline and increased asthma rates in the Caribbean. It also affects China and Brazil that have made heavy investment in Caribbean tourism, infrastructure, and transportation. All these interactions, and the many more that exist in one example, defy borders both on maps and in academic disciplines.
Yet conventional research and decision-making often have taken place within separate disciplines or sectors. The paper notes that one of the systems integration frameworks — human-nature nexuses — “help anticipate otherwise unforeseen consequences, evaluate tradeoffs, produce co-benefits and allow the different and often competing interests to seek a common ground.” For example, the energy-food nexus considers both the effects of energy on food production, processing, transporting, and consumption, and the effects of food production, like corn, on the generation of energy, such as ethanol.
Other systems integration frameworks also bring multiple aspects of human-nature interactions together. Natural systems provide benefits like clean water and food to people, but human activities often inflict harm on natural systems. Considering a variety of benefits and costs simultaneously can help evaluate trade-offs and synergies among them. The environmental footprints framework helps quantify resources consumed and wastes generated by people.
Telecoupling — a way to make sense of a complex world
Many studies on sustainability have focused on one place, but the world is increasingly “telecoupled” — a term which embraces socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances, sometimes several thousand miles away. For example, the large amount of coal from Australia sold to far-away markets like Japan, the European Union and Brazil affects not only those markets, but has global impacts far beyond. The money and environmental impacts such as CO2 emissions that flow with the coal, along with the mechanisms of transporting and burning the fossil fuel, spill over to countries between the partners.
Acknowledging that everything must be integrated is critical for scientific advances and effective policies, the authors say. So is the engagement between researchers and stakeholders. For example, Liu has partnered with environmental and social scientists to show how policies in China to curb human’s role in deforestation and panda habitat degradation were strengthened by enlisting nature reserve residents to receive subsidies to monitor the forests. The innovations were spurred by careful observation of the push-and-pull dynamics of managing a system to allow both people and the environment to thrive.
The paper says that effective policies and management for global sustainability needs the human and the natural systems to be more integrated across multiple spatial and temporal and awauthors think it is essential to quantify human-nature feedbacks and spillover systems. Science has largely ignored these, but they can have profound impacts on sustainability and human well-being.
It is time to integrate all disciplines for fundamental discoveries and synergetic solutions because of increasingly connected world challenges, Liu said.
“Furthermore, the world no longer has the luxury of the past, when there were fewer people on the planet and resources were more abundant,” Liu said. This will require funding agencies and universities to make more drastic changes to alter the reward mechanisms and transform the scientific community from isolated experts to integrated scholars.”
UMass Sustainable Food and Farming 