Defining Our Approach

Our Mission

We leverage University of California resources in partnership with communities to shape a just and sustainable farm and food system.

Our Vision

We envision a farm and food system rooted in urban and rural agroecology, good food access, fair and healthy jobs and racial equity.

Current global food systems have achieved remarkable historical growth and expansion, yet increasingly fail on many fronts. We witness erosion of ecosystem and cultural diversity, decreased resilience in the face of the climate crisis, wasteful and inequitable food and natural resources usage, persistent pollution, and myriad social injustices—including exploitation of food systems workers. We also watch millions of people go hungry while many others suffer from debilitating and deadly diet-related diseases.

Transformational shifts in our food and farm systems depend on interrelated changes in how food is grown and how people eat and access healthy food; social, economic and political relationships; changes in institutions and policies; and changes in how knowledge is produced and shared. Underlying transformational change is the science and analysis to inform policymaking and advance our collective understanding of pressing food system issues. BFI takes a “whole food and farm systems” approach to help advance transformational change, working across our four mission areas of urban and rural agroecology, good food access, fair and healthy jobs and racial equity in the food system.

Today, the Berkeley Food Institute is an interdisciplinary research, education and policy institute working in partnership with communities to advance just and sustainable food and farm systems. We do this work across our five program areas: Education, Research, Policy, Community Engagement and Communications.