Closing the Food Gap

From the War on Poverty to new farmers' markets, a food expert tackles America's dangerous dietary split With a new Foreword Closing the Food Gapexposes America's dangerous dietary split: from patrons of food pantries, bodegas, and convenience stores to the more comfortable classes who increasingly seek out organic and local products. Calling largely on his own experience in food activism, and mixing in surprisingly witty observations, Mark Winne ultimately envisions realistic partnerships in which family farms and impoverished communities come together to get healthy, locally produced food onto everyone's table.

For 25 years Mark Winne was the Executive Director of the Hartford Food System, a private non-profit agency that works on food and hunger issues in the Hartford, Connecticut area. During his tenure with HFS, Mark organized community self-help food projects that assisted the city's lower income and elderly residents. Mark's work with the Food System included the development of a commercial hydroponic greenhouse, Connecticut's Farmers' Market Nutrition Program, several farmers' markets, a 20-acre community supported agriculture farm, food and nutrition education programs, and a neighborhood supermarket.

Winne now writes, speaks, and consults extensively on community food system topics including hunger and food insecurity, local and regional agriculture, community assessment, and food policy. He also does policy communication work for the Community Food Security Coalition. His essays and opinion pieces have appeared in The Nation, Hartford Courant, Boston Globe, In These Times, Sierra, Orion, Successful Farming and numerous organizational and professional newsletters and journals across the country. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.