Optimizing for Health: Linking & Leveraging Land Grant Knowledge Assets in Support of Healthy People, Food Systems & Communities

Abstract

This report provides an assessment of why and how U.S. Land Grant (LG) programs and institutions might more effectively link and leverage knowledge assets in support of their research, learning and outreach activities and continually evolving mission. More specifically it proposes several areas where we can strengthen and optimize socio-technical systems in support of community and regional agrifood systems. That includes facilitating networked learning and innovation across communities of interest, inquiry, practice and place through the collaborative development of a “Land Grant Knowledge Graph”. A focus on healthy, resilient agrifood systems supporting healthy people and communities is presented as a timely and compelling common ground for these capacity building efforts. It’s further argued that such systems-oriented approaches can better enable transdisciplinary, community engaged research and adaptive practices necessary for responding to a range of wicked problems including climate change and food insecurity.

Additional outputs from this fellowship can be found here: https://extension.org/jeff-piestrak/