‘In a nutshell, Modernist thinking on food exalts agricultural productionism, which frequently uses toxic technologies to overwhelm natural systems and limits, artisanal work methods and traditional home-based skills and habits. Modernism also puts mass productionist methodologies in the drivers’ seat of the entire food system. ‘—Wayne Roberts China boasts one of the oldest and most influential agricultural traditions in the world,…
Author: Wayne Roberts
Wayne Roberts is a Canadian food policy analyst and writer, widely respected for his role as the manager of the Toronto Food Policy Council, a citizen body of 30 food activists and experts that is widely recognized for its innovative approach to food security, from 2000-2010.
As a leading member of the City of Toronto’s Environmental Task Force, he helped develop a number of official plans for the city, including the Environmental Plan and Food Charter, adopted by Toronto City Council in 2000 and 2001 respectively. Many ideas and projects of the TFPC are featured in Roberts’ book The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food (2008).
Since 1989, Roberts has written a weekly column for Toronto’s NOW Magazine, generally on themes that link social justice, public health and green economics.
In 2002, he received the Canadian Environment Award for his contributions to sustainable living. NOW Magazine named Roberts one of Toronto’s leading visionaries of the past 20 years. In 2008, he received the Canadian Eco-Hero Award presented by Planet in Focus. In 2011, he received the University of Toronto Arbor Award for his role in establishing food studies as a field of study at University of Toronto.
Roberts earned a Ph.D. in social and economic history from the University of Toronto in 1978, and has written seven books, including Get A Life! (1995), a manual on green economics, and Real Food For A Change (1999), which promotes a food system based on the four ingredients of health, joy, justice and nature.
Roberts chaired the influential and Toronto-based Coalition for a Green Economy for 15 years. He has also served on the Board of the U.S.-based Community Food Security Coalition and Food Secure Canada. He is on the board of Green Enterprise Toronto, an organization of local eco-businesses that’s associated with the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies across North America. He has been invited to speak around the world on strategies that combine food security, community empowerment, environmental improvement, social equity and job creation.
Prior to his involvement with environmental issues, Roberts worked for two decades in the fields of community organizing, university teaching, media, labour education, industrial relations and union administration.
The Front Burner of Food Policy
‘Would-be food policy actors need to understand that home cooking deserves a front and center positioning in the toolkit of city food programs. There is no aspect of food policy that can be implemented without identifying a lead role for home cooks.’ —Wayne Roberts I’ve been retired for eight years now, and a few months ago the reality of that…
Notwithstanding Cities & Food
‘What life has joined together, let no government tear asunder.’ —Wayne Roberts Toronto, fourth largest city in North America, has just lost its ability to determine the way it elects councilors — people who have, over the past several decades, played a critical role in winning acclaim for Toronto as “the city that works.” An obsolete clause in Canada’s constitution…
HANG TOGETHER OR HANG ALONE
‘It’s hard to find a more important challenge than the one Winne identifies. I don’t deny that food leaders are holding together overworked and underfunded organizations which demand all their time and energy. But there’s a huge opportunity cost to their “every group for itself” approach. That line may work during an emergency, when one boat is sinking. But it doesn’t apply…
SHIFTING FROM NUTRITIONISM TO PEOPLE-CENTERED FOOD POLICY
‘Local governments need to deal with food through the window of people issues – jobs, neighbourhood cohesion, neighbourhood rejuvenation, public safety, mental health, conviviality, the need for “third places,” immigrant welcoming, multiculturalism and interculturalism, community gardens, walkable shopping, farmers markets, school gardens, … the whole nine yards of city life.’ —Wayne Roberts This will be the first full year since 1971 that…
Why Food Gets an F for 2017
‘By making cities a strategic government sector to manage food, we bring food back to earth and down to earth, to a level where communities can decide their food sovereignty.’ —Wayne Roberts First, Happy New Year to my subscribers and friends. Second, you’ll be happy to hear of my new year’s resolution – to make the newsletter shorter, more stand-alone…
Food Can Make Michegan Great Again
‘I identified gratitude as the major virtue of a food leader, and love for your little corner of the world, and a desire to make it better, as the ideal motivation for food activism.’ —Wayne Roberts I’ve lived next door to Michigan for most of my life, but its reputation (or my own simplistic stereotypes) kept me from getting to…
Ways to go to Urban Agricultures
‘The success of all forms of food activities, including urban agricultures, rests on the economies of scope, not the economies of scale….When we understand that breakthrough method of measuring progress in urban food matters, we will come to see the potential of totally different methods of managing and rewarding food activities.’ —Wayne Roberts When Socrates, Plato and the gang had…
Being Strategic About Food and Jobs
‘By challenging the obsolete food-as-commodity understanding of food that comes from silo-style thinking in today’s fragmented departments of agriculture, water, environment and health, good food advocates will play the same central role in creative disruption that was once the norm in automotive and computer industries.’ —Wayne Roberts This report from the field comes from sunny Alberta, where the people are…
Proof Positive
‘Cities should see themselves as labs, moving toward best practice as quickly as it is tested and passes the proof test.’ —Wayne Roberts In this newsletter, I’m taking you along with me to a December conference of food insecurity researchers from all over North America, the UK, and Australia — all concerned with proving a progressive diagnosis and remedy for…