We are a community where students work to create, maintain and explore sustainable food systems. At the farm, students grow in many ways, learning from seasoned field-based educators, from their peers and from themselves. They come to understand sustainability through the soils, crops, climate and community in which they work. In the process, they gain the systems-based thinking and doing skills needed to make a positive difference in today’s world.

The Inter-institutional Network for Food, Agriculture and Sustainability (INFAS) is a national network of university and college educators, researchers, and activists, representing 25 institutions and spanning 20 states, who collaborate in analysis, synthesis, and problem-solving with practitioners to increase U.S. food-system resilience; to illuminate critical trends and common stewardship of public goods essential for food systems, such as water, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and public institutions; and to reduce inequity and vulnerability in the U.S. food system.

Our flagship experiment, The Century Experiment (formerly known as the LTRAS - Long Term Research on Agricultural Sustainability), is an completed 100-year study located on 72 acres at Russell Ranch. We measure the long-term impacts of crop rotation, farming systems (conventional, organic and mixed) and inputs of water, nitrogen, carbon, and other elements on agricultural sustainability. Sustainability is measured by long-term trends in yield, profitability, resource-use efficiency (such as water or energy), and environmental impacts.