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
Food Democracy’s Long, Hard Slog
I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me. - Langston Hughes The walk on this sunny winter day from the Lexington and 125th Street subway station took me several blocks down Harlem’s main drag. In spite...
Appearances – Winter and Spring 2019
It’s been cold just about everywhere this winter, even here in Santa Fe where the stingy Snow Gods have finally relented and answered our prayers for moisture. The mountains peaks in all directions are the whitest I’ve seen them in years, which is great for skiers now...
Warren Steals Winne’s Idea, But It’s Okay…
Last week Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts proposed a wealth tax on America’s 75,000 richest people. Not a higher income tax rate, but a tax on an individual’s fixed assets over $50 million – stuff like stocks, precious gems, and fancy baseball card...
Stand Together or Starve Alone Goes Rogue!
Stand Together or Starve Alone is now available for $30 direct from the author (learn more about the book at www.markwinne.com). Act now because this offer decomposes at midnight December 31, 2018. See below for details and reasoning: We’re breaking the rules To...
Taking Care of Our Own
Wherever this flag is flown...we take care of our own. - Bruce Springsteen When it comes to food and farming, there’s been an...
Welcome to the Era of the Lockdown
In the early 1950s, Mr. and Mrs. Winne moved themselves and their two young boys to the north Jersey town of Ridgewood, located just 20 miles west of New York City. Besides being within easy commuting distance of Manhattan’s corporate headquarters where Mr. Winne, the...
Fifty Years Before The Mast
It hit me the other day like a ton of turnips that September marks the 50th year of my doing something. Doing what? Well, anything that really matters, I guess. Fifty years ago, I was 18, and during those early years I wasn’t much more than a tub of self-absorbed...
Summer and Fall Appearances – 2018
I’m fortunate to be participating in some awesome training and learning opportunities this coming summer and fall. My travels will take me to amazing “repeat” states – Alaska! – as well as one of the two states I’ve never been to – South Dakota! I’ll let you guess...
Stand Together for Community Food Projects
Want to encourage people to eat healthier? Don’t do one thing, do many things – new supermarkets, food education, calorie labeling. Want to make a community healthier and more food secure? The use of multiple interventions also applies. Bring together the food...