Resilience Design in Agriculture

Catalog description

This 3-credit, graduate-level course teaches practical approaches in designing, or redesigning, food systems to optimize resource use and enhance agriculture system resilience. Transdisciplinary approaches are applied in solution development by combining concepts of conservation agriculture, agroecology, biodynamic farming, biogeochemistry, permaculture, and biosystems engineering to plan, mediate, and regenerate food systems. Topics center on land mitigation and adaptation methods that protect and conserve natural resources, regenerate and advance agroecosystems, promote land investment, adapt infrastructure, reduce disaster risks and climate vulnerability, and promote value-added incentives for controlling waste and pollution. Investigative analyses focus on ways food production and consumption patterns affect social and environmental sustainability and modern agrifood supply chain influences the economic concepts of circularity and solidarity.