School of Food Systems

The School of Food Systems is a teaching, research and outreach unit in the College of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Natural Resources that focuses on all activities resulting in safe, healthy, and quality foods. What happens on the farm ultimately affects the foods consumed is the underlying philosophy of the School. Our faculty participates along farm to fork and fork to farm spectrum. Activities such as epidemiological evaluation of animal microflora and quality evaluation of crop varieties anchor the farm aspects of the School while conversion of raw commodities into ingredients and food products anchors the fork aspects. The flow from fork to farm closes the loop of the food systems as waste materials generated from food production and consumption ultimately returns back to the environment. The School faculty participants have recognized the need to educate the next generation of leaders about the complexity of the food system and produce leaders that can solve problems and create a vision for ensuring a safe, healthy, and quality food supply.

The program areas of Cereal Science, Food Safety and Food Science serve as the foundational pillars that allow faculty, staff and collaborators of the School to address stakeholder concerns and to achieve our mission.

The mission of the NDSU School of Food Systems is to provide solutions to food systems challenges and opportunities by engaging in interdisciplinary research, education and service.   

The vision of the School is to advance the knowledge and understanding of the effects of production, storage, and processing of raw commodities on the availability of safe, secure, high quality and marketable foods.