‘Understand that you pick your issues, in the dead-serious way people mean when they say “pick your battles” and “I don’t want to die on that hill.” You pick an issue because it allows you to make some progress, for both you and the person you want to pick a bone with. If it only works for you, it won’t…
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.
Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion: The Guerilla Update
‘Neo-liberal governments have shut down action much more than they have shut down research and policy, and that’s one of the reasons why peaceful guerilla methods need to be explored.’ —Wayne Roberts This week’s dispatch from the field comes from Ottawa, where I spoke at a conference celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion — a brief, bold, feisty…
Time to call it Quito! Food & The New Urban Agenda
‘Food denial is no longer more forgivable than climate change denial.’ —Wayne Roberts For this week’s dispatch from the field, I’d like to take you to Quito, where an exciting UN conference will take place in mid-October around a new urban agenda. I’d like to, but I can’t. So the next best thing is to introduce you to an excellent website that…
Unused Capacity
‘Working on community gardens and community kitchens or similar projects promotes life skills and employment skills among many so-called “high needs people” (I prefer “highly-unmet-needs people”). Food’s many gifts in this respect, its full spectrum multi-functionality, are among the most grievous expressions of unused capacity.’ —Wayne Roberts THE SECRET STASH THAT CAN FUEL THE NEXT GENERATION OF CITY FOOD ENTREPRENEURS…
The Big Picture versus Big Meme of Wasted Food
‘Food waste is very photogenic. Food scattered around a landfill site is an attention-grabbing, if repulsive, photo-op. Oddly shaped veggies and fruit can be re-imagined as cute and cuddly conversation pieces. A picture is worth a thousand words. But a meme that sticks in the brain is worth a thousand appeals to reason.’ —Wayne Roberts For our field trip in…
Rural Sociology
‘It’s time for food advocates to say that the dogma of each city doing the one thing it does best, while each rural area does the one thing it does best — and so “urban is urban, and rural is rural, and never the twain shall meet” – belongs in the museum of bad ideas.’ —Wayne Roberts It takes two…
Return to Sender: Food for Social Return on Food Investments
‘Being in a social justice group doesn’t mean being indifferent to how much money a program costs taxpayers and other investors, or how much the taxpayers and other investors get back in return. In fact, the more social justice programs “pay off,” the more we’ll see of them. ‘ —Wayne Roberts Field notes this week:In this issue, I’d like to…
30 Ways Cities Can Prepare for Global Warming
‘In the era of global warming, urban agriculture’s ability to generate spaces for the development of social skills and adaptability is likely more important than its ability to produce food.’ —Wayne Roberts Field notes this week: There’s a good reason (actually, 30 good reasons covered here, plus at least 90 others to be discussed in later issues) why no-one has been…
Culture! That’s subsidiarity to you, bud
‘Food policy and legal policy mean the same thing in North America, but that isn’t the only way to do food policy. Italians can decouple food policy and food law because they have a rich culture.’ —Wayne Roberts Field notes this week: When I’m having dinner and a drink at a restaurant in my home town of Toronto, I’m used to…
Food as a City Lens & Lever
‘If we thought the purpose of a city transportation department was to reduce unnecessary trips, rather than build roads and highways for unnecessary trips — or do unnecessary road repairs of damage done by unnecessary trips (Toronto spends 100 million a year on this) – such departments would surely look at food trips as the ones to reduce.’ —Wayne Roberts…