Institute For Food And Development Policy

The Food first fellows program is a research, advocacy, and leadership fellowship for mid-career researchers, academics, practitioners, and grassroots organization advocates. Its purpose is to assist in incrementally changing the priorities and values of Food system decision-makers and influencers to transform the Food system from the inside out. The fellows program is designed to mentor, nurture, and grow the next generation of influential thought leaders capable of creating and implementing strategies in the Food justice/food sovereignty space. The program serves as an incubator of ideas, supporting the Development and resources to test new innovative local strategies and solutions.

The outreach & engagement program: rise up, scale up listening lab is to listen closely and learn about bipoc-led and underserved communities' Food justice and sovereignty movement work. The goals of the listening labs are to identify best practices and/or gaps.

Research and education for action: the goal of the Institute for Food and Development policy/food first's research work is to generate information and analysis for Food sovereignty locally and globally. Food first also carries out participatory action research with community organizations to help them generate their own information and analyses. The combination of our applied and participatory research produces real-time information and insights. Our research brings the perspective of community-based struggles to broader Development debates. The core of Food first's long-time work, our research and analysis is disseminated through a variety of research publications including backgrounders, Policy briefs, Development reports.

Food first's publications are widely used in university courses and by community groups around the world.