Dave Kranenburg
2027
Scholar
Dave Kranenburg is a Canadian farmer, entrepreneur and food systems leader whose career has progressively deepened its level of intervention in Canada's food system: from convening conversations, to designing collaborative processes, to building and operating the infrastructure itself.
He began by building community and entrepreneurial capacity: as Executive Director of Meal Exchange, he grew a national student food security organization's budget by over 300% and developed the Campus Food Systems Project; as Director of Programming at the Centre for Social Innovation, he designed Ontario's Catapult Microloan Program and a social finance partnership framework supporting dozens of social enterprises.
He then turned to systems innovation itself, founding the Rhizome Institute for the Future of Food. What began as participation in one of Canada's earliest food-systems innovation labs - MaRS and WISIR's Ontario Tender Fruit Lab - evolved into Dave designing and leading multi-sector labs for major institutions, including a six-month engagement building Social Innovation Lab capacity within United Way Greater Toronto.
For the past decade, he has tested those ideas under real operating conditions. He owns and operates Kendal Hills Farm, a diversified regenerative farm on the Oak Ridges Moraine east of Toronto, and founded Green Circle Food Hub (operating as Graze & Gather), now one of Ontario's largest regional food hubs. It’s ann integrated aggregation, logistics and distribution network connecting farmers with households, restaurants and institutional buyers across Central Ontario.
What makes regional food infrastructure durable: how it persists, adapts and helps small and mid-scale agriculture survive within a consolidated global food system
As a 2027 Nuffield Canada Agricultural Scholar, Dave will study what makes regional food infrastructure durable: how it persists, adapts and helps small and mid-scale agriculture survive within a consolidated global food system, drawing on operating models in Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the UK, and beyond.
