Juan Manuel has been accepted for graduate study at the University of Toronto. In 2017 Juan Manuel was awarded The Judith Lee Stronach Baccalaureate Prize, and will be working on a project in his native Colombia after graduation. In 2016 he won the Haas Scholarsp. Juan Manuel emphasizes that the ISF major gave him the opportunity to have a critical and interdisciplinary approach to agrarian questions. This is reflected in his Senior Thesis, entitled “Seeds of Reconciliation: Seed Sovereignty as a Form of Reparation for Victims of Violence in Colombia”, in which he examines how farmers have politicized their relationship with seeds regarding their control and preservation as a means to protect their livelihoods, their cultural identities and their territories, and to resist dispossession.
