I was born and raised on a mixed farm in Bruce County, Ontario.  Like many of my generation, I decided to seek my fortune amongst the bright lights of the city.  I ended up as a professor, and spent a quarter century or so in Newfoundland, teaching and researching about things like rural development, community cohesion and the value of local communications.  Increasingly, over the past couple of decades, I've also been working more related to agriculture and food (maybe as a way to assuage my guilt for not taking over the family farm).  Currently, I'm kind of retired, and have moved back to Ontario, but I still do some community radio shows from the Atlantic region, including a show called "Fit to Eat: the NL Farm and Food Show."  I continue to write about the broad area of food, and maintain a keen interest in all manner of developments around farming, food production and consumer trends.  And I try to keep my hands dirty with several gardening plots and hanging around with my cousins who still grow food for all of us.