Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security header

Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security


Located at Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, the Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security operates at the intersection of agriculture, the environment, and emerging societal challenges. We are reimagining animal agricultural systems to secure a livable, sustainable, and more equitable future.

The Center is an integral resource to national and global stakeholders dedicated to safeguarding animal and human health, agricultural production, ecosystems, food and nutrition security, and bolstering disaster resilience through its collective of multidisciplinary experts.

Our Mission

The Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security aims to foster 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. To guarantee that we steward the next generation of animal agriculturalists, our efforts touch on the broadest of peoples including those in poor and marginalized communities.


Watch our video on how farmers are vigilant about antibiotic residues in milk and dairy products.

Clusters of Excellence


Why Penn Vet?

Penn Vet has a significant role in advancing animal agriculture in Pennsylvania and beyond. Our delivery of food animal health care at the individual and herd or flock level is complemented by food safety and disease surveillance systems. The school’s state-supported laboratories back all eight subsectors of Pennsylvania’s agriculture economy including poultry and egg production; dairy production; beef production; pig, sheep, and goat production; and food manufacturing.

Penn Vet is an early adopter of farming best practices. The Marshak Dairy, also located at New Bolton Center, opened in 1996 and was immediately recognized as a “dairy of distinction.” Five years later, in 2001, Penn Vet opened New Bolton Center's swine unit that ushered in European technologies that minimized the confinement of sows, offering novel levels of animal welfare and comfort.

Building upon this quarter-century legacy of agricultural innovation, the Center for Stewardship Agriculture and Food Security is advancing the responsible use of resources to ensure socially acceptable models of animal agriculture that will both feed and safeguard our planet for future generations.