Notes from the field: a conversation with 2026 FIELD fellows

How did you find Farmlink and what drew you to the FIELD Fellowship?

Eva: “I first found FIELD from a newsletter that my school sends out about student opportunities. It really aligned with my interests working in food systems… and was particularly unique given its combination of innovation and problem solving in combination with on-the-ground direct community work.”  

Iman: “Just through some Google searches! I hadn't heard of Farmlink before, actually, I was looking for some kind of fellowship, internship, research opportunities in the food system. And I was very drawn to the research development, solution model aspect and mentorship. The website got me very excited to do this alongside other students, but also to learn from people who have been either talking about justice or working in it for such a long time, or people who just understand agriculture and farming.”  

In the first phase, you learned from leaders in the food system. What’s something that stuck with you over the past 8 months? 

Iman: “I would say Robert Eggers' session to me was most impactful…We have such an idea as students [that] the nonprofit world is just a bunch of people retiring and then wanting to do something good with their lives, but that is totally not the case. And if that was just the case, then nonprofits would be so ineffective. Robert's vision of social enterprise in the food system totally inspired me to understand healthy food system as a tool for opportunity, for dignity, for justice, and I think that's been the most informative, essentially mission statement of how I look at food systems today” 

Eva: “The more internal lessons with Julia and Eliza and Sophia were all also really interesting, just to learn more about how Farmlink was founded and kind of existing practices within Farmlink. I feel like I learned a lot about how the organization functions, and it provided a really solid foundation going into phase 2.” 

You spent your summers working with Farmlink’s partners across the country. What did that look like? 

Eva:  “I split my time between two organizations during the summer, one of which was First Fruits Farms. This was on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania in a really small town. They are a charitable farm, so 100% of what is grown on their 300-acre farm goes directly into the charitable food network. I had a lot of different roles at First Fruits, but I was mainly working on the dock with the distribution team. So I was taking inventory and stock on the fresh produce that we were growing, and then also what was donated from larger partners. Every day I would come in, and make [orders] for partners who come pick up out of our distribution center. The other half of my week was spent at So What Else, which is a large food rescue bank in North Bethesda, which is a DC suburb. They had clientele-facing food bank operations… I also did a fair amount of sorting - a truck would arrive with some questionable produce and spent a lot of time peeling off bad lettuce or sorting through banana boxes or like mixed bins coming from Amazon or Whole Foods and sorting through what was viable to give to the clientele.” 

Iman: “I started off with an organization called Cane in Whitesburg, Kentucky… It's been deeply affected by economic depression, joblessness, underinvestment, and recent flooding over the last few years. It is an area of deep need... I was basically working at a community kitchen where the majority of full-time employees were in some form of alternative sentencing or rehabilitation, vocational therapy… The main workflow in the summer was a summer food service program where the Department of Education in Kentucky funds a once-a-week distribution of groceries to families that have students in the school system…  I went in really with the question of what is the experience like for people in the charitable food system. I wanted to know more about questions about dignity and opportunity, economic and social opportunity in the specific nonprofit model, and then I wanted to compare that with more social enterprises. So I went to Southeast DC, east of the river, in Wards 7 and 8 working with an organization called Dreaming Out Loud… What I learned was essentially the politics of segregation in a food system and how physical barriers act to segregate communities from food and its power, and the power to employ and create jobs, joy, celebration around food… I started to ask myself, What is [dignity]? What is the response to that question by someone who experiences either acute poverty? [How] does their response compare to [someone living] in East Kentucky. How do access points dramatically differ from someone who might make $10,000 a year more than you? And is [it] acceptable to have no ownership, pride, or joy in the experience.. food? I did a proof of concept and a pilot for a CSA program in Kentucky that targeted everyone who wasn't being reached by distributions … In talking to just hundreds of people, I got to hear all about why certain solutions aren't working for them and what they want to see.”

Was there a certain moment or interaction during your summer that changed how you think about our food system? What was it?

Eva: “Yeah, one example kind of immediately comes to mind [is a conversation I had with a] coworker at Someone Else. I was asking him about his educational background and he had done his whole education PhD in Russia and then came to the US to do his postdoc. He ended up working at the FDA doing really critical research in microbial resistance. This is a highly educated individual who's doing really important research for our country and after funding got cut, he lost his visa. Not only could he not afford to feed his family, but he didn't have any reliable income streams. So he applied to work the yard at So What Else- just driving trucks, moving boxes. He's like, ‘I was excited about taking this job because the manual labor would just give me time to think. The thoughts that are running through my head all day are about my research. And the only thing I wanna get back to is my research.” 

Iman: “There was this moment when I brought this bag to an older woman and it had green tomatoes, which are like an Appalachian cult favorite food… She got the bag, started opening it, and was just rapidly naming a running list of 5, 6 different recipes. There was such an excitement that she had when there was variety and choice in the food that she received. I was really struck by that moment because if we're talking about how food gives you the opportunity to do something else, whether that's to share a meal with your family or create a memory, [I saw how] choice enables the full potential of food.”

How has the work you guys did this summer inspired your projects in the last phase of the fellowship?

Iman: “My project is focusing on using a healthy food system as a tool to create social and economic opportunity while solving critical access points. So creating jobs in a CSA delivery program [that] creates better access for people who can’t make distributions and enrolls people in … weekly guaranteed programs where they can receive fresh food to their door, where there’s choice and a higher quality of food… But also people are getting paid to make those drives and it directly involves members of the community” 

Eva: “[My] project originated from a specific experience this summer. I am connected with an organization in Baltimore called Healthcare for the Homeless, which provides healthcare services to those who are uninsured or don't have any housing resources. A consistent complaint that I would get from MA’s and nurses is that patients would come in for their appointment and not be able to focus on their treatments or suggestions from the doctor because they were so hungry. They needed some kind of fast calories that they could distribute to patients. I discussed with my manager at First Fruits Farm and we started setting aside healthy granola bars to deliver to Healthcare for the Homeless. While they don’t have the capacity to pick up from the farm, we already work with a food bank down the street from them. Because we know the geographic layout of First Fruit Farm’s partners, it was easy to add Healthcare for the Homeless. My project will be a live map that geographically represents the resources in the greater Baltimore area for food access.” 

What has FIELD meant to you and how has it shaped what impact you hope to make in the future? 

Iman: “FIELD increased my confidence in my ability to be a leader. The trust that the team had in me, reminded me that I have ideas that matter. It’s a testament to the quality of leadership that is inseparable from service. FIELD has shaped how I think about the future by teaching me how to be a listener and how important that is as someone who wants to challenge larger systems and play their part in creating a just, equitable future.”

Eva: “I come from a math and research background. I saw food justice and building sustainable food systems strictly through this lens of data. I find myself questioning research through a solely academic lens more frequently and where I can really connect with the work that a researcher is doing. Farmlink has pushed me to not only ask the right questions and do the work to get the answer, but actually act on that answer. Working directly on the ground in Phase 2 has fundamentally changed the way that I see food systems work. It’s impossible to do food systems work without actually directly interfacing with the community that you're partnering with.”

What would you say to other college students or recent grads who are motivated to make a difference in food systems?

Iman: “Don’t just sit on the outside and speculate. Physically involve yourself in your own food system and understand what access looks like based on income, race, neighborhood.” & “Cook food as often as you can and share it with others”