Authors: Jelili Adebiyi, PhD

Summary

More than 108 billion pounds of food is wasted in the U.S. yearly, causing enormous economic loss and negative enviro-climatic impact. Most wasted food ends in landfills and is a major source of methane emissions in the U.S. Universities and colleges across the country are major food wasters. This presents circular economic opportunities for food waste diversion from landfills and repurposing into organic material for improved soil health and agricultural productivity. This project addresses this as it explores the opportunities for the diversion of food waste that is generated at Northern Michigan University dining to produce vermicompost.

Author Information

Dr. Jelili Adebiyi is trained as an agri-food system scholar-practitioner with a multidisciplinary background in sustainability, environmental science policy, Ecological Foods and Farming Systems (EFFS), Gender, Justice, and Environment (GJEC), and international development. He is interested in cross-cutting analytical and methodological tools that can be used to disentangle and address the institutional, gender, social, racial, and environmental justice issues that are interlocked in agri-food systems and development.