35: City Talent Needs to Flow Back Into Agriculture

Overview

Canada's agri-food sector faces an urgent demographic and labor crunch, yet the traditional pipeline of talent relies exclusively on youth migrating out of rural areas. In this episode of The Future Herd, host Jesse Hirsh sits down with Dan Kunanec, a veteran teacher at Toronto's Don Mills Collegiate, to challenge that paradigm. For 26 years, Dan has turned a high school campus into a thriving applied ecosystem featuring a 40-tree orchard, a 160-vine vineyard, an aquaponics setup, and a full kitchen. Together, they explore a radical proposition: instead of waiting for rural youth to save agriculture, we can cultivate agricultural literacy and channel urban talent back into the food system.

Central to Dan's teaching philosophy is the 'loaf of bread' metaphor, which demonstrates how a single food item can anchor a multidisciplinary curriculum spanning science, history, engineering, and community-building. Rather than forcing students through dry, abstract textbook units, Dan builds exciting, tangible projects first—such as planting rare indigenous corn seeds or harvesting produce for Michelin-recognized restaurants—and maps them back to the Ontario Green Industries curriculum. This approach treats students as active co-learners, proving that traditional classrooms can be replaced with vibrant, project-based environments where young people build real-world confidence and problem-solving skills.

The conversation also tackles the complex intersections of food security, cultural identity, and crisis response. Dan shares how the school farm pivoted during the COVID-19 pandemic to distribute nutritious meal packages to vulnerable urban families, inspiring students to pursue careers in food security and community advocacy. By leveraging urban microclimates, saving heirloom seeds, and connecting students with regenerative farmers, chefs, and craftspeople across Ontario, Dan bridges the urban-rural divide. These experiences teach students that seasonality, soil regeneration, and ecological stewardship are not distant concepts, but sensory, lived realities.

Ultimately, this episode offers an inspiring blueprint for how Canada can address its agricultural succession crisis by transforming urban schools into incubators for future food leaders. Listeners will walk away with a fresh appreciation for experiential education, the power of local food economies, and why growing farmers must begin long before young people ever step foot on a commercial farm. It is a vital conversation about finding examples of the future that are already alive and thriving in the present.

Key themes

• Urban Agriculture
• Agri-Food Talent
• Experiential Education
• Circular Food Economy
• Food Literacy
• Regenerative Agriculture