Meet Our Board of Directors

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In November 2015, Sustain Ontario Members elected the first Board of Directors for the organization.  This group of committed individuals from food and farming sectors across the province tends to legal and financial governance, sets priorities and strategic directions in consultation with Members, and supports the Executive Director and staff in implementing programs of the organization.

 

Janet Horner, President

Janet is Executive Director of the Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance.  In her role, she serves to connect her board which consists of members of Regional and City Councils of the Golden Horseshoe, representatives of the Friends of the Greenbelt, Food Industry, Food and Beverage Ontario, Durham College, Vineland Research and Innovation Centre and the farmers.  The Alliance is charged with the implementation of the Action Plan which strives to enhance and grow the food and farming cluster in the Golden Horseshoe.  Janet has been a member of the Steering Committee of Sustain Ontario for the past year, working on governance, municipal procurement and financial issues.  Janet and her husband Brian have farmed in Dufferin County for the past 35 years.

 

Meredith Hayes

Meredith Hayes came to FoodShare Toronto in 2006 bringing with her a passion for cooking, gardening, and food justice and has since delivered countless workshops for teachers, community members and students of all ages. Over the years Meredith has developed some of Field to Table Schools’ signature programs and events including The Great Big Crunch, Eat-In Ontario, and Ontario Farm to School Challenge. Meredith has a passion for collaboration and sits as an advisory member with Sustain Ontario and Farm to Cafeteria Canada and as a founding steering committee member of the Ontario Edible Education Network and the Imagine a Garden in Every School campaign. Meredith is dedicated to advocating for Universal Student Nutrition Programs and Food Literacy education for all students and is energized by the incredible depth and breadth of creative opportunities available to ensure that students understand and access good healthy food.

 

Pat Learmonth

Pat Learmonth founded and is the Director of Farms at Work, a non-profit, charitable project of Tides Canada Initiatives. Farms at Work supports active and healthy farms and farmland throughout east central Ontario and has worked in partnership with organizations across the province to support new farmers and to protect farmland. Pat served as the Environmental Farm Plan Representative and Workshop Leader for Peterborough County for seven years, and co-founded the Kawartha Farm Stewardship Collaborative. She is Co-Chair of the Sustainable Peterborough Working Group on Local Food and Farming and Chairs the Greater Peterborough Area Agricultural Advisory Committee. Pat has served Sustain Ontario in a variety of capacities since its inception and was part of the prior working group leading to its creation. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a degree in Law.

 

Phil Mount

Phil is currently Associate Director of Just Food, Associate Editor at Canadian Food Studies and Co-Chair of the XIV World Congress of Rural Sociology (Toronto 2016).

As the principal investigator of Project SOIL (Shared Opportunities on Institutional Land), and Research Associate with both the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and Nourishing Communities (the Sustainable Food Systems Research Collaborative), Phil Mount is engaged in research at the intersection of food, health and agriculture—using the tools of community-based research, policy evaluation, and network and systems mapping.

Born and raised on a dairy farm in eastern Ontario, Phil pursued an interdisciplinary education that included law, sociology, silviculture, graphic design, farming, political economy, and web marketing. After completing a doctoral program (at the University of Guelph) that looked at the hazards and mechanisms of ‘scaling-up’ local food, Phil has worked on several ‘food hub’ research projects with Nourishing Communities, and collaborated on the design of a Regional Food Strategy as co-chair of the Guelph-Wellington Food Round Table.

 

Lynn Roblin

Lynn Roblin is a Registered Dietitian and Policy Consultant for the Nutrition Resource Centre at the Ontario Public Health Association. Lynn’s areas of expertise are in health promotion and food literacy. Her focus is on assessing capacity and knowledge exchange related to healthy eating and nutrition policies and programs at the local and provincial level.  She has worked in two public health units in Ontario and as a consultant with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Education and the former Ministry of Health Promotion. She was involved in the creation of the 1992 and 2007 Canada’s Food Guides with Health Canada.  Lynn has been a consultant to Dietitians of Canada as well as food marketing boards and industries. She is co-author of Dietitians of Canada’s Great Food Fast and Suppertime Survival cookbooks. Lynn is past chair of the Ontario Collaborative Group on Healthy Eating and Physical Activity, is co-chair of the Ontario Food and Nutrition strategy Design Team and is on Sustain Ontario’s Board of Directors.   Lynn was a founding member of the Halton Food Council and a former board member of the Halton Fresh Food Box program. She graduated from the University of Guelph with a BASc. in Human Nutrition and MSc in Human Kinetics.