Berkeley Food Institute is eager to welcome all new and returning students! I’m Jezra, the new BFI Education Programs Coordinator, and I’ll be focusing this year on connecting students to educational and career opportunities in food and farming systems on and off campus. As a teaser for what is to come, I’d like to tell you about a few new and updated opportunities you won’t want to miss at BFI this year.

We are providing mini grants to Registered Student Organizations! We want to support student-led events, conferences, workshops, or other events that make food and farm systems activities, information, and education accessible to those on and off campus. Awards are up to $1,000 and competitively offered through a new grant application. Fall applications are due September 16, 2024.

We also have grants for Student Research Projects of up to $2,000 to support undergraduate and graduate student-led research projects. If you are planning a food or farm systems research project, working in conjunction with a faculty advisor and/or cooperative extension advisor at UC Berkeley, please check out BFI’s student research grant application. This is one-time funding and applications are due October 30, 2024.

We will be reviewing grant applications based on project clarity, alignment to our focus areas (Urban and Rural Agroecology, Racial Equity, Good Food Access, and Fair and Healthy Jobs), feasible budget and timeline, and plans for measuring success. Stay tuned for an upcoming webinar on the grant program.  Meanwhile, feel free to get in touch with me with any questions you may have.

Want to learn more about food and farming systems career opportunities on campus? Join us for a conversation with peers and experts in the field at one of our events; more to come soon. Last year, students talked with members of The National Farm to School Network, FEED Sonoma Cooperative, Food Shift, CDFA, NRCS, CAFF, and California Farmlink. Students made valuable connections and heard personal stories about individual career paths, noting things they wished they knew when they were in college. Do you want to hear from a specific organization or expert in the field at one of these events? Tell us more about it here.

Lastly, please mark your calendars to join our fourth annual Community Showcase on October 4th from 4-6:30 pm at the Oxford Tract. There will be great local food, a farm tour, guest speakers, and an expo of food and farming-related departments, organizations, and groups supporting students on and off campus. Click here to register by September 27!

This is a snapshot of the educational programming planned for this school year. A good way to stay up to date on all of these opportunities is to subscribe to our newsletters and social media.