The Community-Engaged Food and Environmental Justice Studies Hub at the University of Minnesota Duluth transforms research, curricular advancement, and policy discussions on food justice by engaging community in identifying environmentally sound solutions.

With support from a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation, the newly-launched Food Justice Hub empowers faculty, students, and community members to address food-related priorities such as health equity, healthy food choices, and food security by looking beyond economic issues to include socioeconomic barriers to food access, control of land, environmental impacts of food production, food sovereignty, and more. The Food Justice Hub will host workshops, internships, community-driven research and curricular projects, and curate resources that enhance curriculum, improve teaching, and support local food systems.

Duluth, the economic hub of our region, has been identified as a climate refuge and anticipates rapid growth driven by climate migration. As the largest U.S. city on the world’s largest freshwater lake, Duluth is poised to play a key role in resources necessary to human survival in the coming era, and thus is a key site to work out questions of food and environmental justice. 

Led by an interdisciplinary team of faculty with perspectives across the humanities, the Food Justice Hub will use the holistic tools of these fields to address the cultural factors and social processes needed for systemic solutions to food justice needs. We also partner with Northeast Minnesota community organizations and associations to identify and direct projects that matter to the region. Our partners include:

• Ecolibrium3
• Community Action Duluth
• Northland Food Network
• The Hillside Coalition consisting of Zeitgeist Arts, Family Freedom Center, Duluth Center for Women and Children, and LISC Duluth 

The Food Justice Hub is housed in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth and is supported by the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota with a grant from the Mellon Foundation.