‘It’s about going with the flow of what is there for the taking – as in taking from the early adopter to early majority stage. It’s about intervening to seize opportunities, or as a food advocate might put it, making hay while the sun shines. It’s about being a Solutionary.’ —Wayne Roberts Field notes this week: Pinning Big Hopes On…
Category: Newsletter
Rod MacRae Newsletter
‘If we grew the oats we should eat for breakfast or baking, we would plant 25000 more hectares in oats that would generate 241 new jobs and $3.8 million in taxes. (Isn’t arithmetic interesting?) However, it might cause a decline in sales of laxatives.’ —Wayne Roberts Field notes this week: It’s the Food Economy, Stupid Bill Clinton claims the big…
Terry Marsden Special
“In Terry Marsden’s words, local is no longer just about physical location, but a ‘space for rearranging possibilities which attempt to counter the prevailing forces in the agrarian landscape,’ a place for new networks and relationships. Producer-consumer food relations can be both re-rooted and rerouted, he says.” -Wayne Roberts Field notes this week: New Equations of Regions, People, Nature and Food…
How to grow a local job rich economy
‘Thinking about Shuman’s idea of looking for holes to plug, I was reminded of a close friend who had a stroke. During rehab, my friend complained about his bad arm. Don’t blame your bad arm, his rehab worker replied. The problem is in your brain, which has to be retrained. We need to retrain our minds to think of how…
It Takes Two to Tango
‘The physical distance that has to be travelled by food from afar is difficult. But it’s less challenging than the social and entrepreneurial distance that has to be travelled by food from down the road.’ —Wayne Roberts Field notes this week:It Takes Two To Tango Boosting the amount of local food that’s eaten is not as simple as persuading more people…
Region: Self-Sufficient
‘Instead of asking if we can feed the world, we need to ask if we can nourish the world.’ -Wayne Roberts Field notes this week: Feeding the world one region at a time If you Google “can we feed the world,” you will get 721 million results in less than .83 of a second. That tells me a lot of people have…
City and Country Farms Can Grow Infrastructure
‘The old saying that money doesn’t grow on trees is now totally obsolete.’ —Wayne Roberts Field notes from this week Please stay with me through five outlandish and seemingly unrelated lead-off statements, because in fewer than three pages, you will see some powerful connections to the future of food, farming and cities.1. One of the great fallacies of our age…
Regional Food Doesn’t Have To Go Far
‘In terms of countryside-city relations, we are at the dawn of a new era where the two harmonize by complementing each other’s strengths and weaknesses. ‘ —Wayne Roberts Field notes from this week For the last few months, I’ve been working closely with three very different groups, each keen to hitch their wagon to a regional food system. Thanks to…
City Food Keeps Digging Deeper
‘Commons sense tells us it’s time to turn to cities to protect common resources that make food and city life come to life.’ —Wayne Roberts Field notes from this week First the bad news: The world is in deep trouble. Now the good news: Maybe cities have what it takes to dig us out. I just read a grim article…
The Milan Pact: Checklist or Mannapesto?
‘Cities are centers of economics, culture, infrastructure, expertise, and they have a strategic role to play on the sustainable food file.’ —Wayne Roberts Field notes from this week It’s still not too late in January to squeak in under the deadline on the theme of the major opportunity created last year, and the major challenge facing us this year. My…