Cross-sector partnerships for developing and scaling food system solutions in the northeast U.S.

Food sustains life, spreads joy, and brings us together. But if we are to feed 10 billion people within planetary boundaries, the way the world produces and consumes food needs to change.

The Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont (UVM), in partnership with global ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, will participate in a two-day global UN Food Summit Pre-Event, co-hosting a Nov. 23 event focused on scalable food systems solutions from the Northeast U.S. [Pre-register for the event here.]

This 90-minute event will highlight promising partnerships among researchers, farmers, private sector decision makers, and other key stakeholders that reimagine externalities in food systems and work with agricultural innovators to produce real social, environmental, and economic benefits.

Participants will learn about “payment for ecosystem services” programs that incentivize farmers to produce valuable ecosystem services as well as food and livelihoods from working landscapes; bold actions for equity in food systems through Milk with Dignity, the only worker driven farm labor standards program in the U.S. dairy industry; and research on the social dimensions of food systems that explores how and why farmers adapt to environmental change. This event builds on a research partnership between the Gund Institute at UVM and Ben & Jerry’s focused on regenerative agriculture, an approach to farming that aims to produce a safe and abundant food supply, while improving soils and other natural resources, and increasing farmers’ livelihoods.