Imagining an edible campus
In June 2025, fifteen students gathered at Alliance University in Karnataka, India to ask a question that stretched far beyond their campus: How can we create sustainable, equitable and resilient food systems in the face of climate change?
The assembly was born from an unlikely partnership. foodwize, a social enterprise focused on sustainable food systems, connected with Dr. Mithun Hanumesh, a professor at the university’s Center of Excellence, with a passion for nature-based solutions and student engagement. Together, they saw an opportunity to turn abstract climate conversations into something concrete and actionable.
What happened in the assembly?
The students who showed up represented the university’s full diversity i.e. different courses, academic levels, localities and life experiences. Some came with deep knowledge of environmental issues. Others were simply curious. But all of them shared their favorite snacks in an icebreaker circle, telling stories about childhood treats that had vanished, foods that were no longer “cool,” and the cultural memories wrapped up in what they ate. Those stories became the foundation for everything that followed. Through a problem tree exercise, students dug into the root causes of food system challenges, tracing threads from their plates back through supply chains, climate impacts and social inequities. Then came the visioning activity, a journey to 2090. With eyes closed, they imagined what a sustainable food future might look like decades from now. Their visions were hopeful, imaginative and surprisingly aligned. Working backwards from those futures, they identified what needed to happen today. By the end of the day, three clear proposals emerged: replace lawns with edible food forests, plant more edibles in existing green spaces across campus, and create green roofs with edible plants. These weren’t suggestions for someone else to implement. The students themselves would take ownership, supported by Dr. Hanumesh’s Center of Excellence and the broader university ecosystem. The impact went beyond action items. Surveys after the assembly revealed that confidence in understanding climate change increased dramatically across participants. So did their belief in their ability to affect local change, their sense of connection to both their immediate community and people around the world and their optimism about the future.
Lessons from the Sessions
The assembly wasn’t without its challenges. Multiple activities like story cards, planetary boundaries exercises, problem trees and visioning were packed into a short time frame. Students experienced information overload and needed clearer transitions between activities to connect insights meaningfully. While they empathized deeply with global stories and patterns, some struggled to translate those insights into their own campus context. The organizers also realized they were trying to do two things at once: build awareness and generate action. Future assemblies, they noted, would benefit from choosing a clearer primary purpose.
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The partnership model proved powerful. By collaborating with an institution that had the resources and influence to implement proposals, foodwize ensured that student ideas could find real pathways to impact. And by keeping the focus relentlessly on action, on proposals that were direct, assignable and impactful they helped students move from concern to agency. The students didn’t just deliberate about sustainable food futures. They created one, starting with their own campus, one edible plant at a time.
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