Growing the crops we eat requires a massive web of infrastructure and resources, each of which can have serious downstream implications. From pesticides to groundwater contamination, the ways we make our food can damage the environment, surrounding communities and human health — and it’s Tim Bowles’ job to think about how to create more sustainable and ecological agricultural methods. “If we look ahead to where some of the deepest challenges that we face as humanity are… [things like] providing healthy and nutritious food for a growing human population, biodiversity loss,” says Bowles. “Agriculture is at the center of each of these.” Bowles is an assistant professor of agroecology in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, where he studies everything from ways to make agriculture less dependent on pesticides to how we can better clean up farmland runoff contaminating groundwater across the state.  As he explains in this 101 in 101 video, a se...