Atkinson Agricultural Diversification intern

Business Rationale:

The Future-Proofing Agriculture team, within the Climate Smart Agriculture program, is taking on a growing body of work as increasing attention and importance is placed on the need for food systems to adapt in the face of a changing climate. The team is tackling an array of vital projects seeking to better understand and address the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food systems, which at times call for additional resources and team members. These projects represent key opportunities that are not to be missed; an intern would allow the team and this particular project to move forward in a timely manner to address U.S. agricultural resilience and climate adaptation with the rigor and detail it warrants.

Program/Department Overview

EDF’s Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) team aims to lay the foundation for a future in which farms, ranches and forests support thriving communities, help stabilize the climate and increase the resilience of people and nature to the stressors of global change. Guided by science and economics, we strategically focus on pulling levers for systemic change (e.g., policy, finance and environmental markets, collaborative and adaptive processes) to support more resilient agricultural production that generates significant environmental improvements (such as reduced water pollution, increased flood protection, reduced GHG emissions, and land conservation). Within the Climate Smart Agriculture program, the intern will sit in the Future-Proofing Agriculture team, which seeks to help farmers and farming communities thrive in the face of a changing climate by considering climate-adaptive strategies and future climate scenarios.

Overall Function

The intern will work with the CSA team’s crop diversification project, investigating opportunities and barriers in cropping system diversification in the U.S. This work will be done in collaboration with economists, policy staff and social scientists on EDF’s CSA team. We foresee a number of potential pathways to drive implementation of more diverse and resilient cropping systems in the U.S., including developing markets for alternative cropping systems, working with lending institutions to create loan products that support transitions to more diversified cropping systems, removing policy barriers to crop diversification and crop-shifting, and working with USDA’s Climate Hubs and Extension personnel to provide technical assistance to farmers. With the intern’s assistance, this project will seek to identify key pathways to diversification, and barriers to such behavior change.

Key Responsibilities

• Research case studies of U.S. crop diversification and synthesize key lessons and applicability to other U.S. contexts.
• Work on project development and data gathering.
• Provide support to the larger Future-Proofing team on project-related tasks, meetings, and any field research.
• Conduct secondary research and/or informal literature review as needed, and provide syntheses to the team.
• Participate in advancing EDF Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) goals in which people from all backgrounds and experiences feel connected, included, and empowered to address the environmental and organizational challenges in alignment with EDF values.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated interest in environmental sustainability and climate, with a background in social science.
• Coursework in topics such as agriculture, food systems, and/or climate preferred.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Must be well organized, motivated, and detail oriented.
• Ability to multi-task, prioritize and meet deadlines.
• Ability to work in a team setting and ability to work independently when projects are due.
• Demonstrated self-awareness, cultural competency and inclusivity, and ability to work with colleagues and stakeholders across diverse cultures and backgrounds.
• Demonstrated initiative and problem-solving skills.

Location

Hybrid out of New York, NY

Term

10 weeks

Hours

Full-time (35 hours/week)

Application Materials

Interested applicants should attach their cover letter and resume to the EDF application, along with an unofficial transcript.