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

Internship description

This position will be in the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Division of Fish and Wildlife office in Cortland, NY and will assist biologists and technicians with fieldwork and office support, with a focus on wetland, lake, and stream protection work within the Bureau of Habitat. The candidate should possess a solid educational background and career interest in natural resources. There will be ample opportunity to gain real world experience using GPS/GIS applications, including collecting field data and following it through to final products such as site feature maps. Additional abilities that could be developed include assisting with wetland delineations , vegetation identification, soil classification, along with aquatic organism passage and natural design habitat work. Candidates with existing experience or coursework related to these topics are preferred. There will likely be opportunities to gain experience with Regional Fish and Wildlife staff as well by participating in field surveys with those Units as a secondary focus.

Basic Qualifications and Preferred Experience

Internship schedule 

About the DEC