Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** as environmental and social…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** as environmental and social challenges in global food systems grow, there is an urgent need to ensure long-term productivity and/or profitability as well as fair solutions to provide access to healthful, affordable, and nutritious foods while restoring complex ecosystems, soil health, and water resources. Agricultural practices that reduced reliance on external inputs offers a holistic approach to restore ecosystems and improve food security by focusing on soil health, water quality, biodiversity, and environmental resilience. However, a critical shortage of skilled professionals in food, agriculture, natural resources, and human sciences (fanh) is hindering our nation's ability to effectively address these pressing issues. At SAN diego state university, our multidisciplinary team is addressing these challenges through education, research, and community engagement. Our goal is to strengthen the workforce in fanh by training undergraduate and graduate students to be eligible to join the USDA workforce in positions ranging from entry-level to leadership. Collaborating with over 32 partners including farmers, ranchers and USDA agencies, our program trains students through experiential learning, paid internships, and mentorship. We educate our project participants through a rounded approach to robust agricultural systems, addressing research questions across economic, social, and environmental sciences to identify effective solutions to the agriculturalenvironmental challenges (e.g. drought and flooding) and globalized agriculture. Outreach includes active recruitment to capture students' interests at an early through collaborations with high schools and developing a tier-mentoring program, curriculum development, and public workshops. In order to disseminate our students' research and provide a direct benefit to the community we are developing a symposium which will include scientists, farmers and ranchers, and other groups involved in food and agriculture. The program is guided by an advisory board and tracked by robust evaluation methods to ensure outputs and impacts are measured and are within the program needs.