Emphasizing experiential, hands-on learning, students in the Agroecology Master’s program begin their first semester by working directly alongside farmers, exploring the connections between people, land, and sustainable food systems.
In the course “Action Learning in Farming and Food Systems”, students spent four immersive days visiting three diversified farms in Stange and Løten, Innlandet. Engaging with food and farming systems in real time helps students build meaningful connections, with themselves, with others, with the soil, and with the complex web of farm ecosystems.
From harvesting potatoes and weeding vegetable fields to milking cows and caring for animals, students experienced how farm work reflects interconnected ecological, social, and economic systems. Participating in community activities further illustrated how values, decisions, and traditions shape food systems locally, while also linking to global food challenges.
Engaging the senses
Observation walks encouraged students to engage all five senses - smelling, touching, tasting, listening, and seeing - to develop deep, nuanced understandings of each farm. These walks revealed the farms’ histories, guiding values, and challenges, while conversations with farmers brought these systems to life.
To capture these experiences, students created “rich pictures”, visual representations of the farms’ past, present, and imagined futures. These illustrations highlighted dynamic flows, fixed elements, and value-driven visions, with community, change, time, and care emerging as central themes.
The importance of building relationships
The excursion also emphasized the power of relationships in learning. Students quickly developed bonds with farmers and peers, fostering dialogue, trust, and shared understanding. Experiencing farming firsthand gave students a holistic perspective on the interplay of people, land, culture, and political structures shaping food systems.
Through hands-on engagement, reflection, and systems thinking, this fieldtrip laid the foundation for subsequent course projects, helping students develop shared and inspiring perspectives on agroecology, perspectives that will guide their approach to sustainable food systems and farming in the future.