Food will be the biggest challenge of the 21st century. Will you be ready?

Mark Winne has worked for 50 years as a community food activist, writer, and trainer. From organizing breakfast programs for low-income children in Maine to developing innovative national food policies in Washington, DC, Winne has dedicated his professional life and writing to enabling people to find solutions to their own food problems as well as those that face their communities and the world.

Mark Winne's Latest Book Is Now Available

Seven Unlikely Cities that are Changing the Way we Eat

Look at any list of America’s top foodie cities and you probably won’t find Boise, Idaho or Sitka, Alaska. Yet they are the new face of the food movement. Healthy, sustainable fare is changing communities across this country, revitalizing towns that have been ravaged by disappearing industries and decades of inequity. What sparked this revolution? To find out, Mark Winne traveled to seven cities not usually considered revolutionary. He broke bread with brew masters and city council members, farmers and philanthropists, toured start-up incubators and homeless shelters.

The cities of Food Town, USA remind us that innovation is ripening all across the country, especially in the most unlikely places.

Speaking

Mark Winne maintains an active speaking schedule that includes keynote speeches for annual meetings and conferences, talks and trainings for smaller gatherings, and lectures for colleges and universities. Topics include domestic hunger and food insecurity, public health, sustainable agriculture, social and food justice, food democracy and food sovereignty, the role of public policy in promoting social change, and empowering individuals and communities to take charge of their own destinies.

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WRITING

Mark’s essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the Boston Globe, Washington Post, The Nation, In These Times, Sierra Magazine, Orion Magazine, Successful Farming, Yes! Magazine, and numerous organizational and professional journals. He posts regularly to the blog on this website and is a contributor to www.civileats.org.

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TRAINING

Mark Winne provides a variety of training and technical assistance services to organizations, governments, and communities interested in developing just, sustainable, and economically robust local, regional, and state/provincial food systems. These services include phone and email consultations; on-site trainings, workshops, seminars, and an array of printed and on-line resources. He also specializes in assisting groups that are developing and/or operating local, regional, tribal, and state/provincial food policy councils and networks.

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BOOKS

Mark is the author of Food Town, USA (Island Press, 2019), Stand Together or Starve Alone (Praeger Press 2018), Closing the Food Gap (Beacon Press 2008), and Food Rebels, Guerilla Gardeners, and Smart Cookin’ Mamas (Beacon Press, 2010).

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Putting 50 years of community food system experience, activism, and policy advocacy to work for North America’s communities.

With the advent of industrialism and its widespread application to our food supply – factory farms, genetic engineering, and agricultural chemicals – the struggle between human freedom and authority has reached a critical juncture. In spite of the rapid growth of an alternative food system – local and sustainable food production, farmers’ markets, the public’s rising food consciousness – we become more dependent everyday on industrial agriculture whose representatives insist that it is the only way to feed a hungry world. In the face of such assertions, we must ask if our dependence on such a system threatens to supplant individual self-reliance. Will personal freedom succumb finally and forever to the dominant voice of authority? Are we at risk of sacrificing our democratic voice to self-appointed governing elites? These are no longer speculative questions suitable only for philosophers, but real-life concerns set squarely on the plate of every eater.

Appearances

Blog Archive

Mark Winne’s Blog

FINDING SOLUTIONS TO TODAY’S FOOD CHALLENGES

Purple Power!

Those who know me may legitimately ask why I’m reviewing a cookbook. Never having a strongly felt desire to follow manuals, “how-to” guides, or any kind of recipe for that matter, the thought of plodding through a complicated collection of cooking directions with long...

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Bestselling Food Policy Council Guide Updated!

Imagine sitting on the beach this summer, or lounging poolside at your favorite community center, cool sunglasses highlighting your pretty face and a cold kombucha accessorizing your newly manicured nails. Your head is nodding in a barely perceptible manner to the...

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My Dinner with Embry

The ineffable Jim Embry, raconteur and food activist extraordinaire, motored through Santa Fe early this June as part of his Kentucky to Hawai’i “Joy and Justice Journey.” I convinced him to join me at my favorite local eatery, The Shed, for a margarita and...

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Stop the Bully: Drive Less and Grow Food

I approached the planting of this year’s vegetable garden with an uncommon degree of ambivalence and lassitude. Usually, I’m fueled with an abundance of spring zeal to bring my backyard to life and shake off winter’s lethargy while demonstrating my horticultural...

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“I’m Full!” Fills Our Stress-Induced Void

For too long, I kept a bowl of potato chips, pretzels, and beer nuts on my kitchen counter. Every time I walked by, I scooped a handful of fatty, salty goodness into my mouth. On those occasions when the scoops became too many, and a wave of guilt washed over me, I...

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Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come

Anton’s Taproom and Restaurant on Kansas City’s Main Street was where I accidentally found myself two days after Christmas. The Amtrak train that was supposed to take me from Albuquerque to Chicago was terminated at the Kansas City train station by an eastbound...

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2021’s Most Righteous Food Enterprise Is…

In my never-ending quest for the holy grail of righteous food, I may have finally come as close as I’m going to get. What’s included in the holy grail? Well, we used to call it the triple-bottom line—food that is sustainably produced, pays the producer fairly, and...

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Taking Back a City the Green Way

During my 25 years of community food organizing in Connecticut, I developed a special place in my heart for the city of Bridgeport. Squatting on the state’s coastline at the narrow end of Long Island Sound within shouting distance of New York City, how could I not...

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