About CSRL

   CSRL's activities center on small landholder farmers to achieve food security, improve household nutrition, and stabilize income through sustainable crop production and access to marketing opportunities. We also provide support for malnourished children, widows, and families living with HIV/AIDS.
   Our general approaches towards establishing sustainable improvements in individual and household livelihoods have been to:
VEDCO
VEDCO trainer teaching about soybean farming

  • Partner with developing country organizations, leaders and communities to improve rural food security, nutrition, and health.
  • Support education and development activities that strengthen capabilities of rural people and institutions to improve their livelihoods and respond to emerging challenges, and
Together
Together - An African Success
Lisa Wasco
Graduate student conducting research

  • Catalyze discovery and application of science-based and indigenous knowledge through contributions by ISU faculty, staff and students and their counterparts in developing countries.

Vision

   The Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University envisions a developing world in which rural people have access to sufficient food, sustainable incomes, good health, and well being.


Mission

   We work with partners in the US and developing countries to improve the livelihoods of rural people. Through learning and discovery, our partners train community volunteers in practices that will alleviate food insecurity and poverty. Our focus on improving the food security, nutrition and health of the poor is rooted in the land-grant mission of Iowa State University and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.