Engagement | Grossman Lab

Students in our lab are given ample opportunity to engage with community, including our partners engaging in food advocacy work in our region, and organic farming communities.

Our students are involved in collaborative research and outreach with our partner Big River Farms - The Food Group, whose mission is to offer education in organic agriculture for farmers who have historically been underrepresented in farm ownership—including BIPOC, women, and New American farmers. We also have an active collaboration with Red Lake Nation College designed to offer tribal college students soil science research experiences.

Within our UMN community, Grossman Lab students organize events through their interdisciplinary graduate club FEASt, the Food, Environment, and Agricultural Studies graduate group.

Woven throughout all we do is the delivery of science-based information through workshops delivered at farmer conferences such as Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), the Great Lakes Indigenous Farming Conference, and the MN Organics Conference.

FEASt is an interdisciplinary initiative started by members of the Grossman Lab in 2014 to bring together students from across the University of Minnesota to learn about and discuss the intersections of natural and social science perspectives on agricultural research, politics, and social movements. The group seeks to facilitate dialogue to critically navigate the broad social, economic, and political concerns influencing the food and agricultural sciences. FEASt is now a university-wide endeavor, including participation from a wide array of people interested in these issues. In 2020, FEASt was the honored recipient of the UMN Borealis Exemplary Graduate Student Organization Award. In 2021 a formal class offering, Critical Approached to Agroecology, was developed in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, based on successful pilots of the course by FEAST graduate student members. This course continues as a 7-week fall offering every other year/

To get involved, contact FEASt at [email protected].

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