Posts for the CEFS Agrophile Blog.
WNCStrong: Shaping Youth Service After Hurricane Helene
On September 22, 2025, the North Carolina State University CALS News featured the WNCStrong Youth Service Corps in this article.
The Center for Environmental Farming Systems Announces Recipients of 2025-2026 NC State Graduate Student Fellowships
We are pleased to announce the recipients of our 2023-2024 North Carolina State University Graduate Student Fellowships. Read about the Fellows and their research.
The Impact of Service Corps Workdays
The backbone of the Service Corps is the internships that our 22 members are doing on nine farms across the three counties we serve. However, our Workdays are a meaningful and impactful component of the Corps experience. Corps members, their teachers, and the CEFS-based staff all dedicate one Saturday a month to work as [...]
The Plane has Left the Tarmac
In four short months we’ve gone from ideas sketched out in a grant proposal to twenty-two high schoolers receiving paychecks for internships they’ve been doing on nine farms across Buncombe, Mitchell and Yancey Counties. A full list of those farms is below. In addition to weeding, planting, fertilizing and mulching, our students have built [...]
Farm to ECE 2025 Garden Interns
For the past ten years, Wake County Partnership for Children (WCPC) has been a dedicated leader in connecting local food and nutrition education through its impactful Farm to Early Care and Education (Farm to ECE) initiative. Since launching the program a decade ago, WCPC has worked tirelessly to build a stronger, healthier foundation for [...]
National Leaders Visit NC to See Farm to ECE in Action
Earlier this month, representatives from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, along with partners working in early childhood education (ECE), community gardening, and local food systems in Detroit, Michigan, visited North Carolina to learn more about successful Farm to ECE initiatives that integrate local food purchasing. Organized by Shironda Brown and Dr. Dara Bloom of the [...]
New Publication: Soil Microbial Composition Responds to Diverse Long-Term Management Systems
A June 2025 article, published in Pedosphere, examines soil microbial activity, diversity, composition, and predicted functionality across a 24-year experimental period at CEFS Field Research, Education, and Outreach Facility located at Cherry Research Farm in Goldsboro, NC.
Lunchtime Discovery Series: Agroecology for Sustainable Food Systems in NC
Dr. Michelle Schroeder-Moreno was the May 28, 2025 speaker for a Lunchtime Discovery Series hosted by the N.C. DEQ Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs and the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.
Website Updates in Response to Federal Requirements
To align with recent federal requirements, the Center for Environmental Farming Systems is conducting a review of website content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). As a result, you may notice changes to certain pages of our website effective February 21, 2025.
Mountain Communities Rise: EmPOWERing Food Systems After Hurricane Helene
In response to the devastation of the WNC region, EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems (EMFS), an initiative of CEFS, awarded $100,000 of its small business grant funds to assist farmers impacted by Hurricane Helene.