Plant Futures Initiative is working to accelerate the transition to a plant-centric food system by ensuring students become ethical leaders, systems thinkers and effective advocates for a plant-centric future.
Join the Movement
Plant Futures is a global movement at the intersection of public health, social justice, climate justice, and animal welfare - and our work is proactively facilitating a time critical transformation for planetary sustainability and ultimately the survival humanity
Why plants, why now?
Plants are at the intersection of at least a dozen problems and opportunities in our food system: climate change, public health, food insecurity, biodiversity, food access, diversity and inclusion, soil health, law and policy, technology, food justice, animal welfare, and antibiotic resistance. Driving the rapid emergence of a plant-centric food system is a critical lever
of change to creatively address all these issues.
PFI Bridges Companies with Leading Talent
Our program is creating a diverse, multidisciplinary talent pipeline for the global plant-rich food & ag sector by equipping students with the necessary education, tools, and networks to make an impact.
Our network includes three groups of stakeholders: students, partners, and funders. Students benefit from systems education and real-world experience, industry partners from talent recruitment and innovative solutions to key pain points for their organizations, and funders by supporting the next generation of food systems change-makers for cohorts to come.
The Plant Futures Challenge Lab is our innovative applied learning course where students spend 14 weeks working collaboratively with a professional partner. The course is offered for academic credit at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and next Spring, a policy-focused Plant Futures Challenge Lab will launch at Harvard University
Challenge Lab partners are expected to provide support for student teams from at least one mentor through the duration of the semester. Challenge Lab mentors will work closely with the students and the Plant Futures teaching team to scope the challenge, define deliverables, set expectations, provide student feedback, and meet with student teams throughout the duration of the course. There is a sliding scale fee for organizations based on size and capacity.
What do you expect from Challenge Lab partners?
What kinds of students do you recruit?
Interdisciplinary teamwork and collaboration is at the core of our program design. We recruit students at all stages of their post-secondary education, from all programs and areas of studies. Through a selective application process, we invite the most talented students with a variety backgrounds, including public health, business, data science, nutrition, and social science. We are currently working on establishing a global network of college chapters.
PFI proactively promotes and organizationally integrates diversity and inclusion via a series of initiatives. These include diverse hiring, need-based scholarships, minority college and organizational outreach, academic and employment mentoring, international/multi-cultural symposia, and an in-house ongoing diversity/cultural inclusion assessment.
