A tribute to Brewster Kneen

GRAIN’s former board member and long-time comrade, Brewster Kneen, passed away peacefully on 1 December 2025 at the age of 92 in Ottawa, Canada.

Brewster's confrontations with the corporate food system, while farming in Eastern Canada in the 1970s, led him into a lifetime journey of dissecting, exposing and teaching people about the inner workings of this destructive system, the tactics and strategies used by corporations and the actions that people can take to unite and fight back. Through his books and the monthly Ram's Horn newsletter that he relentlessly published with his late wife Cathleen, Brewster pulled back the curtain on Cargill and other secretive agribusiness companies, educated us all on the politics at play with genetic engineering and gave the burgeoning food sovereignty movement a framework for understanding corporate power. In his later years, Brewster shifted much of his attention to the thorny issue of rights, urging social movements to focus instead on responsibilities and action.

Though he was soft spoken and wore an impish smile, Brewster was an intellectual and political giant and had a big impact on GRAIN.

We will sorely miss his friendship and wisdom, but his writings, conversations, mentoring, and organising work has left us more able to continue with the struggles he devoted his life to.

Brewster's writings are available on the Ram's Horn website via the Internet Archive.