The Lund Fellows Program for Regenerative Agriculture provides Cornell undergraduate students across disciplines with the opportunity to broaden their perspectives and understanding of natural ecosystems and to learn about ecological and social approaches to agricultural systems. 

The Lund Fellows Program provides students opportunities to gain applied experience working on an agroecological farm and contribute to the farm in meaningful and helpful ways, while learning about the process and considerations involved in managing such an enterprise.

We work to spread awareness about the value and mission of agroecological biodynamic, organic, regenerative, and sustainable approaches to farming, strengthen relationships between the university and local farms and provide assistance to small farms that could not otherwise fund summer internships. 

Host farms participating in the Lund Fellows Program were prioritized based on the following values:  

• Explicitly uses agroecological, biodynamic and/or organic farming methods
• Diversified farm (not just certified organic with industrial farming approach)
• Small-scale farm (less than 200 hectares)
• Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers when possible

Position description: 

• Support the care and cultivation of the Bronx River Foodway, an edible food forest located in Concrete Plant Park along the Bronx River
• Support seasonal harvests and learn how to process and preserve the harvest.
• Support a community soil testing program focused on providing free soil screenings to monitor the presence of heavy metals like lead in the Bronx
• Support community trainings and public programming around topics including plant identification,  gardening, composting, native plant cultivation
• The applicant would have opportunities to learn from adjacent program areas at the Bronx River Alliance including canoeing, water quality testing, and urban forest restoration

Basic qualifications and preferred experience

• Ready to work outside, in all types of weather;
• Open to direction, works well in a team;
• Willing to take initiative and lead farm tasks with groups of youth or adult volunteers;
• Commitment to social and environmental justice;
• Ability to work collaboratively with those from various racial, ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds;
• Outgoing, personable, able to effectively engage with community members;
• Able to lift up to 50 pounds.

Internship schedule

This is internship is a full-time position with 40 hours per week on-site or in a hybrid approach. 

About the farm

The Bronx River Foodway is a project of NYC Parks Department and Bronx River Alliance and represents one of the first edible food forests on public park land. The Foodway project was designed to jump-starts the imagination, reconnecting the community to land to forage from within the city. First launched in 2017, this native edible landscape is integrated into Concrete Plant Park a waterfront park along the Bronx River locate in the south Bronx. Since then, the Foodway engages community members around traditional plant knowledge, uses and remedies, fiber arts and more helping to strengthen community resilience. The Foodway Team, an Alliance advisory body made up of local individuals and organizations guides community activities in the Foodway and supports setting project priorities. 

The Foodway offers access to a variety of edible plants, including herb and vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and a meadow that is currently being restored to be healthy pollinator habitat. These include medicinal plants like echinacea, nut trees like the chestnut, an assortment of native berries, as well as a section dedicated to kitchen herbs and familiar veggies.

From 2022 - 2024, the Alliance is working with teaching artist Journei Bimwala to provide an introduction and interpretation to Bronx River Foodway, making the unfamiliar familiar and the familiar accessible. The collaboration will focus on community health and wellness and explore how foraging and public land access can support the management of the commons.

It will activate the Foodway and educate our community through engaging programming that correlates with the season. This work supports our community by communicating traditional knowledge and cultural practices; supporting stewardship of the Foodway; reconnecting historically excluded and marginalized communities of Black, Brown and Indigenous people back to the land; making communities aware of how to cook and make medicines for healthy body, mind, and spirit. Examples include nature therapy, food, medicine, herbal first aid, plant dyes and cordage. This partnership will also develop, launch, and assess a Community Wellness Survey in order to align community ailments with Foodway solutions such as a Foraging Guide.