WashU’s FARM hosts visit by international food and ag experts 

Twenty food and agriculture experts from seven countries visited Washington University in St. Louis on Thursday, February 5, to learn about the School of Public Health’s Food and Agriculture Research Mission (FARM), one of the school’s six research networks. FARM takes a public health-centered approach to food and agriculture, working with academic, public and private-sector partners to ensure access to healthy, sustainable diets for all.

The event was part of a weeklong meeting of Agri-Tech for Resilience, Innovation & Sustainable Ecosystems (ARISE). Supported by the U.K. government, ARISE brings together organizations from Latin America, the U.K. and the U.S. to strengthen trilateral collaboration and drive innovation, shared research and sustainable growth in conservation-based farming. Partner organizations are based in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico as well as the U.K. and the U.S.

“FARM was launched less than a year ago, and we’re still in the phase of building out our network and our research agenda,” said Mark Doyle, PhD, the senior network manager for FARM. “We have a mandate to do research that has real impact on food systems and public health. With representation from academia and experts in agribusiness development and entrepreneurship, programs like ARISE create a space for dialogue among key actors that help move public health innovations in food and agriculture toward commercialization, where they can have a meaningful impact on people’s lives.”

Tamara Schneider, MPH, PhD, is the assistant director of communications and senior science writer at Bursky Public Health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics & biochemistry and in sociology from Yale University, a master’s in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in biomedical science from the University of California, San Diego. She joined WashU as a science writer in 2016.