Climate change, food insecurity, dietary health, community development: Food is always a big part of the story
Mark Winne has worked for 56 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
The Road to a Hunger-Free America
If we are to end the scourge of hunger in the U.S., in other words, advance a just and sustainable food system, such an effort demands an eagle eye on people, places, and actions. Further, and within those three groupings, I have discovered that success is keenly related to a fundamental application of justice, an active imagination, a clarity of focus on needs and solutions, and effective leadership. What I mean by all this is made visible by the stories and analyses found in these selected essays gleaned from nearly 20 years of writing.
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.
BOOKS
Mark is the author of:
- The Road to a Hunger-Free America: The Selected Writings of Mark Winne
(Bloomsbury, 2025) - Food Town, USA
(Island Press, 2019) - Stand Together or Starve Alone
(Praeger Press 2018) - Closing the Food Gap
(Beacon Press 2008) - Food Rebels, Guerilla Gardeners, and Smart Cookin’ Mamas
(Beacon Press, 2010)
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
It Takes a Tough Woman to Work a Tough Town
Hereford, Texas – May 2026 Look at Casa del Llano’s brochure and the image of their building on its cover; it’s a study in modesty, humility, and maybe even discretion, as in we don’t want ICE knocking at our door. There’s barely a sign marking the building or...
The Heart of Urban Ag Is Still Beating…In Kansas?
A note to my readers: Writing this post during the high light of summer felt almost out of place against the gloominess that has enveloped us over the last few weeks. Not wanting to succumb to the darkness, however, I persevered because it’s a story about people and a...
Rise Up for CFP!
The Community Food Projects (CFP) grant program is to the U. S. Department of Agriculture what one tomato seed is to a large garden. It may not look like much in the palm of your hand, but when handled properly, it’s a mighty force for community food system change....
The Choice is Clear
“We must cultivate our garden.” Voltaire The crack of the bat. The soft shoosh of the shovel blade sliding into the yielding earth. The satisfying humpf of a baseball smacking a leather mitt. Coming out of its winter hibernation, the wheelbarrow squeaks its way across...
The Taste of Food Books
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Francis Bacon, 17th Century English philosopher Shelves stuffed with books are supposed to be a symbol of their owner’s intelligence, culture, and a certain savoir faire....
Israel’s War on Palestinian Olive Farmers
I grew up under the sway of Zionist ideology. Like a similar ideology that underpinned my 1950s and 1960s American history lessons, Zionism presented a virtuous cause framed by a tale of divine destiny that was forged in a cauldron of suffering and activated by a...
Yuma, Arizona: The Paradox of Plenty
Arizona has a special place in my heart because it’s the only state from which I was ever banned, albeit temporarily. I had been invited to address a statewide food summit in the Spring of 2017 on the topic of food security. Having gratefully accepted the offer and...
Stand Together or Starve Alone Now in Paperback
“We must hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Ben Franklin When I wrote Stand Together or Starve Alone in 2018, I chose Ben Franklin’s famous admonition to his compatriots as my epigram because it stood for what I felt was both wrong and...
A Bar Stool with a View
(All italicized sections are conversations held with or overheard by the author at the Shed Bar between 2018 and the present) It was just another night at The Shed’s bar. Two older women from Texas were laughing hard and belting back margaritas harder, a Black and...