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Food systems are complex, essential and global—they are the networks that include the people, resources and activities needed to process, distribute and consume food.
Through courses, research opportunities, community projects and more, about 80 U-M faculty members at the cross-campus Sustainable Food Systems Initiative (SFSI) are working to help transform food systems from the current environmentally damaging status quo to an ecologically sound, socially responsible and health-promoting form.
Together with their students, these researchers are leading the charge to address the world's most pressing and complex problems.
Here, we highlight the work of three SFSI faculty members.
 | Soil degradation threatens our ecosystems and climate, and thus the future of food access. To be sustainable, ecological processes will need to be managed using species diversity to sustain production and support important functions including restoring soil health, which is the focus of research being conducted by Jennifer Blesh, associate professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, alongside students and other collaborators. Read Meet the Future of Sustainable Food Systems: A Focus on Soil Health and Crop Diversity |
 | Lesli Hoey, associate professor at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, is addressing global food inequality through environmental research and transformative student initiatives. She says that multidisciplinary alliances and involving people from different disciplines is essential to adequately tackling complex food system problems. Read Hungry for Change |
 | Andy Jones, associate professor at the School of Public Health, along with Hoey and Blesh, collaborate to teach the cross-disciplinary Foundations of Sustainable Food Systems course, which imparts their individual expertise to students while also bringing that knowledge together to understand how each of the disciplines affects and impacts everything from the environment, diets and equity. Read Food Systems Synergy |
Look to SEAS at the University of Michigan for what’s coming tomorrow. We’re passionate about sparking solutions for the most pressing challenges—in Michigan, across the nation and around the world. With your support and partnership, we can do so much more. Reimagining our planet starts today. Be part of it.
