Robynne Anderson

Robynne Anderson is an international expert in agricultural and food policies. Her engagement reaches throughout the value chain providing support in issues management and strategic development to a broad range of clients ranging from farmers to food processors, scientists to governments. Robynne represents accredited organizations at the United Nations, bringing the voice of agriculture in multi-governmental processes. She distinguished herself in establishing the first Private Sector Mechanism representing agribusinesses at the UN Committee on World Food Security. Her savviness at international diplomacy broke new grounds in bringing new issues to prominence in the international policy fora, such as the role of women in farming, the importance of post-harvest losses and food waste in food security. She led the two-year long negotiations for obtaining the declaration by the UN General Assembly of the International Year of Pulses and then co-ordinated the activities for the year on behalf of the Global Pulse Confederation reaching over 21 million people on social media. She also represented business in the negotiations that led to the Voluntary Guidelines on the Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, as well as the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Security. In the context of her work on outreach to international organizations, Robynne also founded the Farming First coalition in 2007 and her company serves as the Secretariat of the International Agri-Food Network (IAFN). Robynne is a spokesperson and public speaker on international agricultural, food and nutrition issues. She spoke at the UN General Assembly, Rio+20, the UN Committee on World Food Security, the UN negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to founding Emerging ag, Robynne established Issues Ink, a Canadian-based publishing company specializing in magazines on Canadian and American agriculture. She managed the company for over seventeen years until selling in 2008. In that time, she founded Germination – Canada’s seed magazine, reconceived the Alberta seed guide, and purchased Seed World magazine and ran a total of 12 titles, plus several electronic newsletters. Robynne is a graduate of Carleton University. She started her career in Canadian politics as legislative assistant to the then Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. In addition to her role at Emerging ag, Robynne is involved in the management of her family’s seed farm in Dugald, Manitoba, Canada. She is also the founder and current chairman of the Manyinga school project, a non-profit organization that supports orphans to learn agricultural skills through schools.