{"id":3778,"date":"2024-02-21T06:47:32","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T06:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfs.local\/program\/sustaining-traditions-food-farming-and-climate\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T19:19:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:19:02","slug":"sustaining-traditions-food-farming-and-climate","status":"publish","type":"program","link":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/center\/italy\/program\/sustaining-traditions-food-farming-and-climate\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustaining Traditions: Food, Farming, and Climate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Stone terraces, chestnut groves, and coastal lagoons form a living tapestry where food, culture, and ecology are inseparable. Students kneel in vineyards to survey pollinators, track wolves along ridgelines, and study soil and water management in citrus groves, while working with cooperatives adapting to climate shifts and global markets. Students collaborate with local cooperatives during harvest season, gaining insight into sustainable food systems and agricultural practices. Yet across rural Italy, fields are abandoned even as predators reclaim old ranges and traditions strain to survive. The tension is vivid, but so too are models of renewal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Track biodiversity in Orbetello\u2019s lagoon with artisanal fishers responding to rising salinity, policy shifts, and ecological decline.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Explore food\u2019s biocultural roots during a weeklong Sicilian excursion, where Greek and Arab agricultural legacies echo through landscape, language, and cuisine.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Analyze agroecosystem resilience in Chianti and Maremma by assessing soil, water, and landscape indicators across working farms.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Share meals and language in family kitchens, where recipes and conversations open cultural and linguistic doors.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Conduct Directed Research: frame a stakeholder-driven question, collect and analyze field data with faculty guidance, and present actionable findings to local partners.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This fifteen-week program explores sustainable food systems that are an alternative to industrial production. Students examine the ecological and climate impact of various agricultural practices including biodynamic and organic farming and agroecology, in addition to the more conventional farming methods and industrial agriculture. The program explores how national, regional and global agriculture and rural development economics and policies shape the environmental, social and economic sustainability of food systems. Throughout the semester, students discuss strategies for developing a more sustainable food system. Through lectures, discussion, fieldwork, and research, students engage with the policy elements used to enact and evaluate international and national sustainable agriculture policyto improve the environment, society, and the economy. They analyze data to understand and inform policy-relevant decisions and produce reasoned and critical policy papers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22055,"template":"","location":[95],"class_list":["post-3778","program","type-program","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location-italy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program\/3778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstudies.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=3778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}