Regenerative School Meals: A Global Strategy for Climate Action and Educational Equity

Registration Link: Here

Bio: Jennifer Gaddis (Yale School of the Environment, PhD, 2014) is associate professor of Civil Society and Community Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Gaddis is the author of The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools (University of California Press, 2019) and co-editor with Sarah A. Robert of Transforming School Food Politics around the World (MIT Press, 2024). She is principal investigator of a $1.5 million national school food workforce study funded by the US Department of Agriculture, an advisory board member of the National Farm to School Network, and an active public scholar.

Topic: What if one of the most powerful tools for fighting climate change and inequality was already in our schools? In this talk, Dr. Jennifer Gaddis reveals how school meals—often overlooked and undervalued—are being radically reimagined by governments around the world. Drawing on her research sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation on innovative policies in Brazil and South Korea, Dr. Gaddis shares how regenerative school meals can advance multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals—especially those related to climate action, sustainable agriculture, and educational equity—while fostering healthier communities and ecosystems.