A Food Systems Leadership Institute report looks at how the nation’s food system is changing and how land-grant universities should respond. 

Land-grant universities must be consumer-driven, break down barriers to cross-disciplinary collaboration, respond more quickly to a changing environment and need additional funding if they are to address successfully the future needs of the nation’s food system.

That is the conclusion of a report produced by members of the first “cohort,” or class, of the Food Systems Leadership Institute. The institute, located in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University, is designed to develop the leadership abilities of upper-level administrators in higher education, government and industry.

The Institute was developed by the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, said Dr. Ken Swartzel, William Neal Reynolds professor of food science at N.C. State University and Institute director. The Institute provides leadership development opportunities to upper-level leaders in higher education, government and industry, preparing these leaders to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future.  

Each class of 20 to 25 fellows spends two years in the program. The institute accepted its first class in 2005. The members of the first cohort developed a project called “Vision 2020: An Integrated Food System.” Vision 2020 was designed to engage food system stakeholders in a conversation about drivers of change in food systems.

As a part of that conversation, institute fellows conducted discussions about food systems with stakeholders in nine states. The result is a report that looks at the food system and how it is changing and at land-grant institutions and discusses how land-grants need to change to better serve the food system.

“There’s a lot to this report,” Swartzel said. “We hope it will recognized as creditable information, be something people will look at and say, ‘we better take notice of this.’ We hope it will have an impact on university and business strategic planning.”

As Executive Summary of the report is available here:  http://www.fsli.org/filelibrary/executive_summary%20(9).pdf

The full report is available here:  http://www.fsli.org/filelibrary/FSLI%20White%20Paper%20Corrected%2006.04.08.pdf