Food and Agriculture Courses

BFI is a sponsor of this course, first piloted in fall 2024 in partnership with the Haas School of Business, which looks at how supply chain interventions are an important lever for improving critical issues in our food systems. The class showcases the many professional roles and career paths that can contribute to a healthier, more sustainable and just food system. The course UGBA 192T.6 – MBA 292T.3 syllabus can be found here. Enrollment is still open for fall 2025. 

Starting in the summer of 2024, BFI has facilitated an integrated undergraduate agriculture education field quarter in collaboration with UC flagship campuses and UC Agriculture & Natural Resources. This is a full-time, 7-week residential and traveling field study course hosted by UC Santa Cruz. Hands-on experiential learning happens on multiple campus farms, including our Oxford Tract farm, and with community-based organizations—sites that are at the forefront of agroecology research, extension assistance and farming operations. Enrollment is open to all students, regardless of their enrollment in any one UC campus. More information about the summer 2026 Agroecology Field Quarter will be available in February. We will post details here.

The DeCal Program is an aggregate of student-run courses at UC Berkeley in which students create and facilitate their own classes on a variety of subjects, many of which are not addressed in the traditional curriculum. DeCal explores agroecology as a decolonial praxis. It is structured in two parts: 

1. Guided grounding in social and political critical theory, and
2. Hands-on agroecological farming practices through workshops and labs at Oxford Tract farm on campus.

You can find out more information about the course here.

In 2018 and 2023, BFI offered a seminar at UC Berkeley, which brought experts on the Farm Bill to campus with the goals of understanding the general framework of this important legislation and identifying areas of particular interest for further study. Students critically analyzed the Farm Bill’s history, structure and implementation, contributed to real-time discussions, and built skills in policy analysis, debate, communications and coalition-building.

Edible Education 101 was a hybrid public lecture series and for-credit class in partnership with the Edible Schoolyard Project and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and Berkeley Food Institute. It was offered to undergraduate students and free to members of the public. The course sunsetted in 2023. The course explored the future of food, its diverse systems and movements. Lecture topics included organic agriculture, food safety, hunger, Farm Bill reform, farm-to-school initiatives, agroecology, labor in the food system, urban agriculture, food sovereignty and local food economies.