Robert Pekin, once a casualty of Australia’s dairy deregulation, turned personal loss into a bold mission to transform the food system. In 2005, he founded Food Connect Brisbane, a community-supported agriculture (CSA) initiative connecting local farmers with consumers who share in the risks and rewards of growing food. Driven by collaboration, creativity, and a bit of mischief, Robert’s work empowers regional food economies and champions community ownership. His vision: a fairer, healthier, more resilient food system—good for farmers, eaters, and the planet.
Topics covered:
- Sustainability
- Food systems
- Farming
About Robert Pekin:
Robert’s work is focused on scaling up the potency of a highly networked food system by collaborating with like-minded farmers and social entrepreneurs up for a challenge and involving mischief. Like tens of thousands of small and medium-scale dairy farmers, Robert Pekin was a casualty of the de-regulation of the Australian dairy industry that took place during the 1990s. In what was a deeply traumatic period for himself and his family, Robert, like so many other dairy farmers, lost the farm that had been in his family for generations. Robert’s path to redemption and healing led him to the discovery and practice of community-supported agriculture (CSA). First practised in Japan, Germany and the UK in the 1960s and then blossoming in the USA and beyond in the 1990s, CSA is a model of direct, food-based exchange between farmers and members of a nearby town or city, who become stakeholders in the farm enterprise, sharing its risks and its bounty. Food Connect Brisbane (FCB) was established by Robert in 2005 as a multi-farmer CSA with this vision and its principles firmly at its core. Over the succeeding years, FCB has grown and thrived, showing itself to be resilient in the face of considerable challenges. Food Connect’s vision is to create a world where everyone has access to healthy, fresh, ecologically-grown food that is fair to growers, eaters, and the planet. They want to transform the food system, and they believe the next step towards this vision is to create a working local food hub for the regional food economy, that is owned by the community.
Connect with Robert Pekin on LinkedIn here.