The Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security

Our Mission

The Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security aims to promote the responsible use of resources — including air, water, land, animals, and people — entrusted to farmers to produce sustainable and nutritious food while successfully meeting the demands of feeding the world’s burgeoning population. Our efforts touch on the broadest of peoples, including those in poor and marginalized communities, as we aim to steward the next generation of animal agriculturalists.

Animal Welfare

Animal Welfare (AW): Focuses on animal well-being and provides resources and training for various organizations. The work of scientists in the AW cluster reflects a host of cross-disciplinary expertise, including animal behavior, physiology, and productivity, and helping farmers and others in the food supply chain to address societal concerns about animal use in agriculture.

Climate Impact

Climate Impact (CI): Aims to decarbonize and adapt agricultural systems by studying greenhouse gas mitigation and food waste upcycling. The work of our scientists focuses on areas including microbiology, genomics, nutrition, and soil science to study the mitigation of greenhouse gases, upcycling of food waste, and precision feeding of animals.

Food Security

Food Security (FS): Enhances animal agriculture’s capacity and resilience, supporting vulnerable communities. Our experts in animal health and productivity evaluate and advance a multitude of best practices, including biosecurity, precision livestock farming, animal disease GIS mapping, and food animal export and import.

Human Health Interfaces

Human Health Interfaces (HHI): Enables our scientists to use their backgrounds in epidemiology, ecology, toxicology, and pathology to examine the use of antibiotics, antimicrobial resistance, disease, and zoonotic diseases.

Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative Agriculture (RA): Investigates optimal farming systems to reduce environmental impacts and improve soil health. Our scientists in this realm are leaders in collaboration across the university to explore the role of animals in improving soil health, including increased biodiversity, effective use of cover crops, and circular food systems.