COURSE DESCRIPTION

As the world grapples with extended and varied eco-social emergencies, the ways in which we plan for, produce, process, exchange, share and waste or valorize food is of critical importance. Food systems that sustain and can be sustained are foundational to our individual and collective resilience and thriving. 

Designed by Food Systems Educators Mackenzie Faber and Nicole Civita – and featuring interviews with writers like Amanda Little and Ross Gay as well as community innovators Roberto Meza and Fatuma Emmad – this self-paced course employs a systems-thinking framework to analyze the patterns and relationships that govern the food systems landscape. Through intentionally curated learning content, students will be equipped to engage critically with their own assumptions, ethics, and ways of seeing, and contribute what they know to global and local efforts to build better, more pleasurable, and more humane food systems.

The course utilizes a variety of modalities to facilitate student learning, including recorded, place-based lectures, readings, journals, interviews, and discussions.

Learning Outcomes

As they journey through this self-paced, online course, learners will have the opportunity to:

• employ a practical and actionable understanding of systems thinking concepts to frame the components, relationships, and leverage points that comprise current agrifood systems.
• contribute, contextualize, and expand their individual knowledge, experiences, and traditions pertaining to agriculture and food within local and global systems.
• balance increasing knowledge of complex crises and collapse with joy and imagination. 
• describe and contextualize contemporary global food system challenges and their local impacts, particularly for those with relatively low-levels of power. 
• recognize and define key terms in the field of agrifood systems while contextualizing and complicating their conventional meanings.
• articulate their own evolving identities as changemakers in their community food systems, inclusive of ethical values and priorities, preferred theories of change, and sense of place. 
• collectively diversify and strengthen their understanding of agriculture and food systems by engaging in thoughtful discourse with other learners and changemakers.

This course was created through and is part of :

COURSE-AT-A-GLANCE

The topical overview of the course below provides an early taste of what you can expect as you embark on this learning journey.

Part I: Foundations for Food and Systems Thinking

• Food for the Journey: Ross Gay and The Book of Delights
• Orientation: What is a Food System?
• Orientation: Foundations of Thinking in Systems
• History of Agrifood Systems and Stories of Agrarianism
• Nourishing Humanity
• Planetary Boundaries
• Scoping the Global Food System
• Food Movement Paradigms & Priorities: Access, Justice, Sovereignty, and Resilience

Part II: Agriculture

• What is a Farm?
• Sustainable Agriculture 
• Urban Agriculture
• Food and Climate
• Animal agriculture
  

Part III: The Messy Middle

• Labor Throughout the Food System
• Food Aggregation, Transportation, and Retail
• Trade
• Consolidation in the Food System
• Local and Regional Food Systems
• Introduction to Food and Agriculture Governance
• Food Technology
• Food Waste, Loss, and Circularity
  

Part IV: Our Roles, Systems, and Visions

• Rituals of Consumption
• Ethics and Identity
• Reflection: The System We Have
• Emergence: Thinking Creatively and Inclusively about Systems Change and Imagining Better
  

AUDIENCE

This class is designed for lifelong learners who believe in ecological thinking in action, who value learning in intentional community as well as independent thought, who crave essential knowledge about the food system yet may not have the money or free time to pursue traditional higher education, for those who want to break down silos and go deeper, for those seeking equitable transformation, for those looking to pivot toward new career paths and build their resumes, and for those looking for human connection and community.

COURSE FACILITATOR

Mackenzie Faber began her career in food systems education as the manager of a one-acre farm in a Brooklyn schoolyard. There, she guided crews of seasonal interns and witnessed their transformation as they practiced laying drip tape, starting brassica seeds, harvesting hot peppers, and running a weekly community market. A long time worker in restaurants and in sustainable agriculture, she remains committed to advocating for dignified conditions for all who labor across the food supply chain. She roots her work in the fervent belief that food is about more than hectares, calories, and yields; for her, food is complex, food is sacred, and food is joy. Originally from northern New Jersey, Mackenzie is a passionate believer in the restorative properties of a good bagel.

Mackenzie completed her graduate studies in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she met mentor, collaborator, and EcoGather’s Network Weaver and Creative Collaboration Director, Nicole Civita, JD, LL.M.  Nicole’s introductory graduate-level food systems course, Nourishing Humanities Within Planetary Boundaries – the result of her decade of work as a food systems changemaker, educator, ethicist, and attorney – was eye-opening and paradigm shifting for Mackenzie, who soon realized that she wanted to work at the intersection of inclusive pedagogy and sustainable food systems.  Recognizing the importance of collaboration and successive iteration, Nicole offered her former student the opportunity to reimagine the course in a way that would make it more widely accessible. Through thoughtful and creative reflection, Mackenzie wove together essential insights about agriculture and food systems sustainability and key principles of systems thinking, while also centering joy as a way to sustain active hope in face of the crises and inequities that plague the food system. As a result, the course that grew out of this collaboration reflects the varied perspectives and combined insights of food systems changemakers at different stages of their own careers, making it well-grounded, dynamic, and fresh.

DISCLAIMER:

Course descriptions on this webpage are for informational purposes only. Content may be updated or changed as planning evolves. EcoGather reserves the right to alter the program specifics, including details about course content, instructors, collaborations, field trips, facilities and pricing, at any time without notice.