Janielle Maxwell - Board & Staff

Janielle is happy to be in a position where she can help improve access to viable long term business solutions for marginalized people. This will not only increase capital and economic stability in these communities, but contribute to solving the multi-factoral business succession dilemma Canada currently faces.

As a Black woman of colour who grew up amongst other equity seeking groups (other racialized individuals, people with disabilities, LGBTQx+ etc.); she is well aware of the inequities and barriers marginalized people face in social, academic, and professional spaces. Due to personal experience with all of the aforementioned contexts, she has developed a strong passion for true advocacy that catalyzes measurable change for the systematically underserved, underrepresented, and under-credited. 

She is currently completing her MSc in Rural Planning and Development at the University of Guelph; with a One Health Specialization. Her research focuses on farm-level best management practices (BMPs) amongst minority farmers; whether that be racialized or small-scale farmers. Due to the scale of their operations or cultural perspectives on land and food, most of these producers farm to increase food security and/ or food sovereignty. Thus, many of these farmer’s practices differ from the norm, as they usually implement some form of regenerative or holistic agriculture. It follows that such groups can be uniquely positioned as models for new or improved BMPs that are better suited to reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture. As an aspiring One Health practitioner, she also considers the interconnections between human, animal, and environmental health in this matter.

Apart from work and school Janielle is a HUGE foodie. She loves exploring international cuisines and is always following Mark Wiens, ‘The Taste Life,’ and ‘The Best Food Review Show Ever’  (traveling social media foodies) on their next adventures. Some international dishes she’s proud to have mastered so far are: Indian channa masala, Nigerian jollof rice, and Egyptian koshari. Accordingly, she is also an advocate for not only food security, but food sovereignty- as she does believe investment in these essentials has the potential to promote socio-economic development in communities our system has historically underserved. She currently volunteers at an organization that seeks to mitigate the negative effects of urban planning on marginalized groups and her hobbies include: poetry (she hopes to publish a book soon), herbal/plant-based medicine,languages (fluent in French and learning Spanish), exploring her culture, and all things self-care i.e. candles, crystals, aromatherapy.