PIONEERING A NEW WAY TO DO FOOD SYSTEMS RESEARCH
Research funded by the FSRC is unique because it is a joint venture between UVM and the USDA to address critical food systems issues, such as farm viability, human health, and poverty. UVM researchers and experts from many disciplines, from the medical school to the business school, collaborate with USDA researchers on campus.
Here’s a look at where we’ve been and where we’re headed.
- 2019 - Former Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) spearheaded the creation of the FSRC in collaboration with USDA.
- 2021- FSRC doubled the number of post-doctorate fellows in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
- 2023 - Leahy’s team, UVM researchers, and USDA research colleagues are scheduled to move into a renovated lab and office space in the Joseph L. Hills Agricultural Science Building.
OUR MISSION
We develop solutions for improving human health, well-being and livelihoods, and environmental sustainability through food systems.
OUR VISION
We envision a world in which all people are nourished and satisfied by the food they eat and where food systems sustain livelihoods and the natural systems upon which we all depend.
WHAT WE DO
The Food Systems Research Center at UVM (FSRC) conducts interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research to study food systems: the networks of people, institutions, physical infrastructure, and natural resources through which food is grown, processed, distributed, sold, prepared, and eaten. We examine how different parts of a system interact to understand why food systems function the way they do. The FSRC focuses on the Northeast U.S. but considers the relationship of food systems across scales from local to global.
OUR IMPACT
- 100+ funded faculty, staff, and student collaborators
- 3.7M provided in research, training, and equipment funding
- 10M for infrastructure improvements
- 4:1 external funding return on initial FSRC grants
- 56% success rate on external funding applications
“With our core funding, we can have a long-term vision. We are becoming a high-profile, exciting, invigorating place where you go to do food systems research. Though the research is regionally focused, it has global and international relevance because it shows the world what it’s like to live in a place where people care not only about how their food tastes, but also about where it came from and how it was grown.”
Polly Ericksen, Ph.D., Director of the UVM Food Systems Research Center