INFAS envisions a US food system that is environmentally sustainable and socially just. Our mission is to facilitate INFAS member collaborations to:
- Increase our capacity to help build U.S. food system resilience, sustainability, and equity.
- Raise visibility of research-based insights into food system problems and solutions.
- Catalyze frontier work in food systems research, higher education, extension, and institutional change that we can achieve much better together than by working alone.
- Diversify who is doing food systems work in academia and in action-focused research, education and extension.
INFAS is a network of educators and researchers who are dedicated to food system sustainability and committed to supporting, learning from and partnering with activists in our communities. We recognize that our food system is profoundly inequitable and institutions of higher education hold power and privilege that can be used for good or harm. Equity in opportunity, food access and health outcomes is a non-negotiable foundational principle of a sustainable food system and a core value and commitment for us.
To help build equity in the food system, we are focusing on the barrier of structural racism. We recognize multiple forms of oppression; so we also will focus on gender and class oppression, and the intersections among race, class, and gender that shape barriers and opportunities to equity.
We make a commitment to collaborate with communities of practice and place through our research, education and convening capabilities to better understand, communicate and find solutions to how food system disparities affect the experiences of those most affected by systemic inequities. We will strive to work with and respect community members as leaders, co-creators of knowledge, co-formulators of questions and co-facilitators in building solutions as we endeavor to create a more just food system for all people.
- Support the INFAS Vision and Equity in the Food System Statements.
- Incorporate the INFAS Mission statement and principles into your work
- Commit to connecting your work with others to effect change and share knowledge at local, regional, national, or international levels including with communities outside academia.
- Share resources from your place-based work into INFAS and take resources and share back to place-based community work. ‘Resources’ could be information, ideas, publications, or collaboration opportunities including for funding or other relevant activities.
- Commit time and resources (based on capacity) to participate in INFAS activities including convenings and related activities.
- Commit to honest Network communication and engagement, e.g. participating in discussions, contributing to activities etc. (based on capacity)
- Model and share best practices in campus/community relationships
- Be an ambassador for INFAS: cultivate relationships within INFAS and also connect this Network with other networks. Be willing to talk with new people about INFAS, invite more people to participate and share the Network’s commitments to equity in the food system and the pillars of sustainable agriculture and sustainable food systems: economic sustainability, social sustainability, and environmental sustainability.
NOTE: By joining INFAS, you will be indicating your support of the INFAS documents; and INFAS activities in which you engage will be oriented to moving the mission, vision and commitment to equity forward.
