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.
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.
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.
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.
Mark Winne’s Blog
FINDING SOLUTIONS TO TODAY’S FOOD CHALLENGES
Hunger is a “Sensitive Social Issue”
On October 28, I attempted to “boost” my recent Facebook post that promoted my new book The Road to a Hunger-Free America (that post is replicated here). For those not familiar with Facebook (a form of ignorance I would heartily endorse), the boost function places...
The Road to a Hunger-Free America is Here!
I am proud to announce the publication of my fifth book The Road to a Hunger-Free America: Selected Writings of Mark Winne (Bloomsbury). This announcement is likely to provoke a follow-up question which is why write another book at the age of 75? One answer might be...
The Hungry Don’t Count
The Trump dictatorship announced yet another effort to conceal information from the American public. Herr/Hair Trump’s USDA will terminate the annual measurement of the prevalence of food insecurity (hunger) in the United States. Vital research data that has been used...
The Famine Next Time
I’ve turned my attention lately to the subject of famine. Not a cheery topic I know, but one that, like the proverbial Doomsday Clock ticking down to midnight Armageddon, seems more real than metaphorical. What prompted this grim look into the future was a deep dive...
Strawberry Fields…Forever?
According to my Word Press counter, “Strawberry Fields Forever?” is my 200th blog post since I began markwinne.com in 2007! I don’t honestly know what to do about that other than to simply make my readers aware of what I guess is a milestone. I thought about honoring...
Ken Regal Gets the Last Word
When I found out that Ken Regal, 65, was retiring at the end of June from a nearly 40-year career at Pittsburgh’s Just Harvest food advocacy organization, I knew I had to interview this man before he disappeared. I’ve known Ken off and on over the course of 30 years,...
Sometimes the Hands Forget
(With thanks to Callum Robinson and his wonderful first book "Ingrained") My gardening hands have a way of forgetting from one season to the next. Some of this stems from being out of practice—winter’s dormancy and frozen ground had forced a pause in my outdoor...
How to Wrap a Fig Tree and Other Lessons from Joan Gussow (1928 to 2025)
“Stuff the dried leaves gently between the burlap and the tree. Work them into the branches but be careful not to break any branches. There are more leaves over there near the river. You hold the burlap open while Mark stuffs the leaves in. Yes, that’s good. Don’t...
Billionaires Bully Babies
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. William Butler Yeats Press Release Washington, DC. February 10, 2025. To ensure the safety and...