Whisked away for a prairie farm weekend
Connecting consumers and farmers has become a new imperative. Research from the Ontario Ministry...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Jun 22, 2012 | Global, Guelph Mercury
Connecting consumers and farmers has become a new imperative. Research from the Ontario Ministry...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | May 14, 2012 | Guelph Mercury
As last year drew to a close, University of Guelph economics researchers Sylvain Charlebois and Francis Tapon were predicting the 2012 overall price increase in food would be about two per cent. However, Charlebois cautioned at...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | May 8, 2012 | Guelph Mercury
If local food is so healthy, why don’t more hospitals serve it? And if we’re so concerned about food security, why aren’t we dedicating more resources to developing reliable, sustainable local food systems? ...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Dec 22, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
Price wars are being predicted for food in 2012, thanks mainly to imminent arrival of the latest big box store to hit Canada. But in a strange twist, that could actually end up working in local food producers’ favour. According...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Nov 21, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
To the things we hold dear, we tend to associate traits that in reality may not necessarily be so. Case in point: local food. Local food is local food, period. Its distinguishing characteristic is that it’s grown close to where...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Oct 17, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
The Woodstock-like anti-development festival near Shelburne that was held Sunday, called Foodstock, magnified how rural Ontario has become a battleground for diverse ideologies, extreme self-interests, and total...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Oct 11, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
The 2011 version of Thanksgiving’s weekend dinner was a lot different than last year’s model, whether you enjoyed it at home or had it served in a restaurant. This year food is, in general, more cherished, more expensive and,...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Sep 6, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
Our zeal for local food is making us look more closely at what we buy – isn’t it? Intrinsically, I think so. But new economic information from the U.S. makes me wonder if we’re reading stickers and labels. Last week, U.S....
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Jul 17, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
Farmers don’t plant by hand, plough with horses, or fetch pails of water from a well anymore. Instead, much of their work is done with technology, making farming more efficient and modern. In that light, one of the world’s...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Jul 11, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
Food choice patterns are formed for many young people the first time they leave home and start buying food for themselves. What’s readily available in their new local communities and campuses? Whatever it is, that, along with...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Apr 10, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
Leslie Carson is giving hospital food a good name. Carson, manager of food and nutrition services for Guelph’s St. Joseph’s Health Centre, was recognized last week, along with Rowe Farms, for being committed to quality local...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Mar 22, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
At a recent international food and agriculture summit sponsored by the Reuters news agency, global leaders underlined how much they’re paying attention to consumers’ perception. For example, Kerr Dow, vice-president of...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Mar 1, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
I’m going to start buying a local food product from my daughter Alicia Huston and son-in-law Mark (pictured below) next year, in a 750-ml bottle that says Canadian Club. For the past five years, the Huston family farm near...
Read Moreby Owen Roberts | Feb 14, 2011 | Guelph Mercury
Top marks to Iowa State University for its progressive approach to local food. I was fortunate to learn about it from Ottawa native Nancy Levandowski, the university’s director of dining. She wanted to introduce local...
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Owen Roberts is a faculty member in the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications program at the University of Illinois. As an agricultural journalist, he is the past president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists and a lifetime achievement award recipient from the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation. His programs and research papers have been recognized nationally and internationally through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence, and others.