Robynne Anderson, who was raised on a family seed farm in Manitoba, was one of three women to be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame Thursday night in Calgary. Also inducted were Patty Jones of Quebec and Jean Szkotnicki of Ontario.

Below is a profile of Robynne from the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame Website:

Robynne Anderson has been rooted in the seed business from a very early age. Raised on a family seed farm in Manitoba, she has focused her professional career on supporting, promoting and advancing the Canadian seed industry on many fronts in Canada and internationally. The entire agricultural value chain has benefitted from her proven approach to advancing issues through negotiations, collaboration and communication.

Robynne’s career began with agricultural advocacy in the political arena as a special assistant to the Deputy Prime Minister in the late1980s where she worked on legislation impacting the Plant Breeders’ Rights Act. She took her knowledge of government and her agricultural background to enter the private sector world and launched her first company, Issues Ink, an agricultural publishing and consulting company tackling tough issues in Canadian grain transportation. She worked extensively with the Canadian Seed Trade Association from board governance and policy issues to helping ensure Canadian growers had access to global markets. Robynne was a trailblazer in agricultural communications, creating and publishing publications serving a broad swath of the industry including Germination, Seed World, Spud Smart, Flavourful and CAAR Communicator. In 2010, she created Emerging Ag, a consulting firm to the agricultural sector with a multidisciplinary approach to issues management.

Robynne’s contributions to Canadian agriculture are extensive and diverse. She pushed for identity preservation through the food production chain. She led the charge to see Canadian oats become the primary supplier of the Mexican export market. As a media commentator, Robynne has covered the seed, biotech, crop protection, fertilizer, farming and manure management sectors. Her issues management work reaches throughout the value chain, working with farmers, food processors, scientists and government. And she has been honoured with lifetime memberships in the Canadian, Manitoba and Alberta Seed Growers’ Associations.

On the international stage, Robynne is the founder of Farming First, an international coalition of farmers, industry, civil society and academia that has become the leading voice for global agriculture advocacy. She was an organizing partner on behalf of farmers globally at the UN Rio 20+ conference garnering international recognition for agriculture as a key sector in sustainable development. She was instrumental in initiating and implementing the UN’s 2016 International Year of Pulses, yielding exceptional benefits for Canadian agriculture. She helped build the International Agri-Food Network and brought a new understanding about the value of conservation tillage and women farmers to decision makers at the UN. Robynne is also a co-founder and current chair of the Manyinga School Project – a non-profit organization that supports orphans to learn agricultural skills through schools in Zambia.

A visionary leader and a facilitator of change, Robynne’s work continues as a leading international expert on agriculture and food policies and a trusted, collaborative partner for our Canadian industry.