EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems (EMFS), an initiative of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS), works to strengthen the local food system across 12 Western North Carolina counties and the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The arrival of Hurricane Helene underscored the importance of this work. Severe disruptions to farms, local [...]
On September 22, 2025, the North Carolina State University CALS News featured the WNCStrong Youth Service Corps in this article.
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
To provide a snapshot of the importance of agriculture on the county level, the N.C. Cooperative Extension Local Food Program Team, NC State FarmLink, and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) created an infographic for each county and each Council of Government region based on a comparison of 2017 and 2022 USDA Agriculture Census data.
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.
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.
