FOOD - ROBERT PEKIN - Urban food production

Former dairy farmer and market gardener, Robert Pekin is founder of Brisbane-based Food Connect, Australia’s largest and most successful Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) scheme. This social business model provides dignified and secure livelihoods for small farmers and employees and develops local food resilience within communities. Robert's business replication system has seen the Food Connect model spread autonomously throughout Australia and NZ.

Robert is on the world committee of URGENCI (the global organisation for fostering local solidarity partnerships between producers and consumers). He is also a founding member of Ecological Agriculture Australia and is on many food, fibre and agriculture working groups. Robert is also on the Leadership Council of the Social Enterprise Coalition and is a mentor for the emergence of the Social Business Concept.

Robert has formed the Food Connect Foundation to oversee the formation of a Farmland Trust and a new Farmers' Development Pathway as well as support replication of the Food Connect business model.

Food Connect won the Banksia Peoples Choice Award and the QLD Gov Climate Smart Leadership Award in 2009