Hoey among winners of Frontiers Planet Prize for global study of diversified agriculture
A major agricultural study conducted across five continents by nearly 60 researchers, including Taubman College’s Lesli Hoey and two other U-M faculty members, has been recognized with a Frontiers Planet Prize from the Frontiers Research Foundation.
Four years in the making, “Joint environmental and social benefits from diversified agriculture” confirmed that diversified farming benefits both people and the environment by improving food security and biodiversity at the same time, and was published in the journal Science in April 2024. Zia Mehrabi, assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, led the multidisciplinary study. He and his team will receive $1 million in funding to advance their research as part of the prize.
Hoey says the co-authors plan to invest the funding to strengthen their network of cross-country research with farmers and community leaders in diverse contexts to support the expansion of diversified food systems.
Other co-authors at U-M include Jennifer Blesh, associate professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability, and Andy Jones, associate professor in the School of Public Health, both frequent collaborators of Hoey’s, who is an associate professor of urban and regional planning and director of doctoral studies at Taubman College. The three have worked together on the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative and co-teach the cross-disciplinary Foundations of Sustainable Food Systems course.
Together, they contributed a longitudinal study of two metropolitan regions in Bolivia, one in the highlands around the city of El Alto and one in the tropical lowlands in Montero, providing data on 484 farming households with a median farm size of 1.2 acres.
Hoey’s work included leading a food environment scan and survey of diverse types of food vendors; Jones led a survey of more than 3,000 households on diet-related health data, food insecurity, income, and other factors; and Blesh led an agricultural survey for households that managed farms. Blesh was also part of the lead team of authors who worked on coordinating data across 24 studies from 11 countries to make them comparable across agricultural, social, and environmental outcomes.
