Yes, Penn State University provides access to knowledge, skills, or technology about food security, sustainable agriculture, and sustainable aquaculture to local farmers and food producers through:
- Penn State Agricultural Extension – A variety of sustainable agriculture programs share skills and knowledge to all 67 counties across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
- The Student Farm offers community outreach and engagement programs to provide diverse opportunities for engagement with sustainability challenges and solutions in food and agricultural systems. The annual Harvest Festival brings together more than a 1,000 people to the farm. In addition, the Student Farm hosts regular webinars
- The Penn State Campus Gardens website provides information about gardens on campuses across the state that aim to educate the campus about our food system and engage the local community in the process.
- Penn State College of Agricultural Science – Ag Progress Days is an annual event that showcases new programs/technology for sustainable agriculture.
- The Symposium on Emergency Food Resilience – this annual event is free and open to campus and community to learn about the latest research on the topic.
- Research – Access to food security and sustainable agriculture knowledge has been made available to a local and global audience by Penn State professors. 2022 publications examples include:
- Food insecurity is associated with higher food responsiveness in low-income children: The moderating role of parent stress and family functioning was published in the journal Nutritional Science
- Farmers’ Perception of Climate Change and Its Impacts on Agriculture was published in the journal Hydrology.
- Meeting global challenges with regenerative agriculture producing food and energy was published in the Journal Nature Sustainability
- Assessment of the effect of urban agriculture on achieving a localized food system centered on chicago, il using robust optimization was published in Environmental Science and Technology in 2021.
