Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] TERRA MADRE World Meeting of Food Communities

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org, nmgreens@yahoogroups.com
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] TERRA MADRE World Meeting of Food Communities
  • Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 08:52:23 -0700

TERRA MADRE World Meeting of Food Communities
Turin, Italy, October 20-23, 2004

Notes by Robert Waldrop, President, Oklahoma Food Cooperative
http://www.oklahomafood.org/

Terra Madre, sponsored by Slow Foods International, was a forum for
those who seek to grow, raise, catch, create, distribute and promote
food in ways that respect the environment, defend human dignity and
protect the health of consumers. An alternative to the current
industrial food production system exists: one where food quality and
variety are valued, rural regions thrive, and links between producers
and consumers are strong. It took place in Turin, Italy from October
20-23, 2004.

Terra Madre was a gathering of an unprecedented scale, drawing 5000
people from dozens of nations. Every participant represented a 'Food
Community' - which means they are part of a chain of production,
linked by a common product, ethnic identity, region, history, or
approach. The purpose of Terra Madre is to rediscover the links that
connect the primary producer to the vendor: the grain grower, the
baker, and the bread shop. Participants in Terra Madre exchanged
ideas and solutions about how to promote a healthy, dynamic, and
diverse food system.

"Note: these comments are based on notes taken during the
presentations. There are some omissions I am sure, in particular, I
was not able to
get all the names of the speakers. As the proceedings are published,
that kind of information will be more readily available, in the
meantime, I hope this essay captures some of the experience and
conveys some of the most important information that was presented.
More information about these events can be accessed at
http://www.terramadre2004.org/ and http://www.slowfood.com/ . This
article is long, but it contains I think a lot of useful information.

Robert Waldrop, President, Oklahoma Food Cooperative
http://www.oklahomafood.org/.

THE PLACE

Terra Madre 2004 happened at the Palazo de Lavolo - the Palace of
Work - in Turin, Italy. This is a large convention center, very high
ceilings, a huge empty space transformed for a few days into a
village with some 5000+ residents, all engaged in an exciting
intellectual, political, and social organizing event.

Make no mistake about this. Terra Madre 2004 was the beginning of a
global voice for the small farmer and artisan food producer. In the
world before Terra Madre, when the governments of this world
discussed agriculture, everyone was at the table EXCEPT for the small
and artisan producer and subsistence farmer. Terra Madre provides
the opportunity of presenting an organized voice to the world's
power brokers on behalf of these people who presently have no voice
or participation in the world decisions that directly impact their
economic viability and social sustainability.

This structure is only at its beginning, there is a lot of evolution
and development to come, but a fertile field was planted with
heirloom seed during the four days of Terra Madre 2004. As farmers
habitually do, we all worked hard. Now comes the cultivation, and
soon will come the harvest.

You enter the Palazzo through doors, above which is a giant banner
for the event. The first thing you come to is the registration area,
a series of booths arranged in a half circle right in front of the
entrance. Large signs above the various stations identified the
language groups. With delegates from 130 countries, just think about
what that implies in terms of translation abilities.

Each delegate received a registration packet, with the schedule, the
workshops they were assigned to, their delegate identification card,
Salon de Gusto pass. Each delegate received a large tag that
everything fit in nicely to hang around our necks with our name,
country, and food community.

From the registration area, you pass into the main meeting area.
Directly ahead a little to your right is the plenary session area,
with walls dividing it from the rest of the space, seating for
5000+, giant posters covering the walls, and large screens which
televised the action on the stage. To your left was the hospitality
area, tables, food serving stations, coffee bars, etc ., and a
general information area, with "post office boxes" for each food
community, displays, and places for delegates to set up tables.
There were a lot of international products and crafts available for
sale.

To the right there were meeting rooms, internet access point, copy
shop, and more room for people to stand around and visit. On the
walls were large posters with agrarian/slow food quotes and above
them were typically large photographs of rural scenes. By "large" I
mean on the order of 40 feet by 60 feet.

Everywhere there are people, of every "nation, kindred, tongue, and
people." Many were wearing the traditional clothing of their
cultures. There was spontaneous music and dancing, people brought
drums and instruments or improvised them on the spot and suddenly
there would be a group of maybe 30 or 40 folks dancing and singing
and drumming. At the opening and closing plenary sessions, one of
Italy's finest rural choirs sang traditional songs a capella
(without accompaniment). They sang one song during which one person
would drink wine from a large punch bowl. The person "on the spot"
had to drink as long as the choir sang, until the choir would give a
unison shout and pause. Then the drinker could pass it to someone
else. The president of the Slow Food International group was one who
drank from the bowl, another was the Italian minister for
agriculture, and a third was a Mongolian called out of the audience,
dressed in his full traditional clothing. He drank a lot and got a
big cheer from the audience. At the closing session, there were
brass bands from Italy and Romania, and after that there was an
Italian oom-pah band, singers, and dancers entertaining as we
wandered around making our final contacts.

It was a busy event, but there were also lots of opportunities for
casual conversation. There were typically long lines for the buffet
meals, but some of the best conversations I had during the event
were while waiting in line for lunch.

There were four basic activities that characterized the program:
plenary sessions involving all of the delegates at the beginning and
the end, workshops and presentations for smaller groups,
personal/spontaneous interaction of the delegates, and the
interaction of the delegates with their Italian hosts.

Instead of housing everybody in hotels, the Terra Madre folks
arranged for us to stay at farms, monasteries, convents, and schools
in the surrounding area. For example, I stayed with a dairy farmer
who lived just outside of the village of Ricconiggi, about 30
kilometers south of Turin. There was a busload of North Americans
staying at other locations in the area, and also a busload of
Brazilians. (We were hauled back in forth, morning and evening, in
buses.) Our hosts, and the sponsors of the bus transportation, were
all members of Colidretti, which is the largest organization of
Italian farmers, about 80% of the farmers in this area belong to the
organization. Besides enjoying hospitality with our individual
hosts, the local folks sponsored banquets and parties for us, where
we had the opportunity to taste the typical local foods of that
region, which is known as the Piedmont. The Piedmont area of Italy
was the first to completely ban the planting of genetically modified
seeds. One banquet featured eight courses, with of course liberal
amounts of the local wines and at the end, liquers, some of which
were homemade.

Our host, Antonino Gai, operates a dairy farm of 70 hectares (one
hectare equals about 2.5 acres), and milks 120 cows in conjunction
with a cooperative of 9 members. The family bakes all of its own
bread in an outdoor oven (the "forno"), makes its own salamis and
sausages, relishes, pickles, sauces, and etc. They buy new wine in
bulk from local wineries and bottle and age it themselves, produce
all of the beef their extended family eats, they also have rabbits
and chickens, a large fruit orchard, kitchen garden, and herbs were
planted around the house. His house was recently built, the family
lived with his parents (whose house is next door on the farm) until
they accumulated the resources necessary to build their own house.
The ceiling tiles of their typically Italian red tile roof were 160
years old and taken from his grandfather's house, as were all of the
wooden beams for the ceilings. The walls are a solid 30 centimeters
thick, made of brick, mortar, cement and stucco. There is no air
conditioning, they have radiant heating in their floors (water
circulating through embedded pipes) and use a furnace that burns corn
to heat the water. Farm land in their area sells for 9 euros per
square meter, or 90 thousand euros per hectare (about 2.5 acres, 1
euro equals about US$ 1.25.) Those figures are not typos, there are
10,000 square meters in one hectare. Every farm house I saw had an
orchard (typically 20-24 trees) and a large vegetable garden, and we
saw lots of very small but profitable commercial farms (in the 2 to
5 acre size).

THE CONVERSATION

"It is impossible to know what the farmer's real work is: whether it
is to plow, sow, and mow, or whether, at the same time, it is to eat
and drink fresh produce, have children and breathe freely, since all
these things are closely connected and when he does one of them he
compeltes another. Everything is labor, and nothing is labor, in the
social sense of the term, it is his life." Jean Giono, Letter to
Farmers on Poverty and Peace, 1938, one of the phrases on the large
signs at Terra Madre.

Because of the diversity of people present at the event, translators
were essential. Simultaneous translation of the plenary session
presentations and the workshop events were provided in Italian,
English, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and Japanese. All the
delegates received a small transistor radio and headphones, and by
turning to the appropriate channel you could hear the translation.

The first speech at the opening plenary session was given by Carlo
Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food international movement. His
speech was an inspiring call to arms to defend what is good and true
wise and beautiful, against the idea that the only values that
matter are economic. He began with these words:

"Intellectuals of the earth and the seas, I welcome you. . . You are
all expressions of the human act work. You practice a sophisticated
art, transforming milk into cheese, malt and grain into beer. . .
mixing flavors and spices that make nutrition something pleasant. . .

Mr Petrini went on to identify the problem which he sees as
essentially separating people from nature and substituting
manufactured foods who simple, wholesome, sustainably produced, local
foods. He said:

"This is not the property of a few people. It is a sign of the good
relationship between humanity and the land. Here we are to salute
extraordinary yet simple foods. . . The great importance of
traditional food knowledge must not be threatened by the productive
schemes of profit for a few. . . Alone and isolated communities
cannot fight the structural violence which limits the freedom of
farmers. . . Advocates of the industrialized, genetically modified
model of agriculture ridicule the traditional knowledge of the poor.
. .

What is to be done? Carlo says that customers must actually see
themselves as partners in the circle of production, in effect,
customers of local foods are co-producers of local foods, because
without customers, there will be no market, and with no market,
there will be no production:

"We must make a conscious, cultural choice to support a good quality
of food that meets the needs of customers who appreciate the
producers of their foods. Producers and consumers share a common
fate. Protection of our food heritage is a common task. Customers
must become co-producers and understand that when production is
threatened, they are threatened."

Mr. Petrini wove themes of solidarity and international fraternity
into the close of his speech. Cooperation in the future will be more
important than competition:

" Fraternity and solidarity are the values we share these four days.
In this century, much has been debated regarding freedom and
equality, but there has not been much talk about universal
brotherhood and solidarity. We therefore re-propose solidarity as a
value and a method."

"The suffering of the earth is the suffering of all creatures. When
hunger and famine afflict us, it is always the suffering of mother
earth that runs through us. For we are not separated from the earth,
we were born of its loins. When we lack food, our thought declines
because the animal in us prevails to flee death." Pierre Rabni,
Words of Earth, 1996. Sign on a wall at Terra Madre.

The delegates then heard from five speakers, one representing each
continent. One of the most challenging speakers was Miguel Altieri,
an associate professor at UC Berkeley, and an expert on the growing
field of agroecology.

"Agroecology is a scientific discipline that uses ecological theory
to study, design, manage and evaluate agricultural systems that are
productive but also resource conserving. . . Agroecology is concerned
with the maintenance of a productive agriculture that sustains yields
and optimizes the use of local resources while minimizing the
negative environmental and socio-economic impacts of modern
technologies. In industrial countries, modern agriculture with its
yield maximizing high-input technologies generates environmental and
health problems that often do not serve the needs of producers and
consumers. In developing countries, in addition to promoting
environmental degradation, modern agricultural technologies have
bypassed the circumstances and socio-economic needs of large numbers
of resource-poor farmers. "

More information about agro-ecology can be found at
http://www.groundspring.org/index_gs.cfm . An essential aspect of his
message, and this was repeated throughout the event, is that organic
and sustainable agriculture production methods has the potential to
increase yields over modern industrialized agriculture, and do so in
a way that is sustainable and accessible to even very poor farmers
in poor countries. These experts consider modern large scale
agriculture, which is dependent upon heavy and expensive off-farm
inputs such as fossil fuel energy, chemical fertilizers, herbicides
and pesticides, to be a dead end, a dinosaur whose age is coming to
its end. Professor Altieri said: "Agro-ecology challenges the
dominated agricultural development paradigm. It is time to expose the
failure of modern agriculture to address the challenges of peasant
agriculture."

He identified these processes as ways to optimize an agroecology system:

+ Strengthen the immune system (proper functioning of natural pest
control) + Decrease toxicity through elimination of agrochemicals +
Optimize metabolic function (organic matter decomposition and
nutrient cycling) + Balance regulatory systems (nutrient cycles,
water balance, energy flow, etc.) + Enhance conservation and
regeneration of soil-water resources and biodiversity + Increase and
sustain long-term productivity.

This article from his website has more details about agroecology and
offers an excellent overview of the issues for producers desiring
more sustainable production methods:
http://www.groundspring.org/index_gs.cfm .

Professor Altieri was followed by a second speaker from Brazil, whose
name I did not get. He described how over production in North America
and Europe, and the export of those surpluses to poor countries as
both direct sales and donated food, actually increases food
insecurity in those regions. Food exports destroy local production,
create dependence, and enhance corruption. He said, "The problem
with hunger is not the lack of food, but rather the lack of justice.
. . what is necessary for slow food is quick justice."

The next speaker was from Burkino Faso in Africa, and he echoed the
Brazilian's comments, plainly saying that the transnational system of
moving First World agricultural surpluses into Third World economies
was doing nothing more than promoting hunger among the poor.

The fourth speaker, from India, expanded upon Carlo Petrini's concept
of customers as co-producers. She said, "By becoming co-producers,
consumers support biodiversity, local agriculture, and a future of
hope. . . What is often called food in this age is not food, it is a
byproduct of a war economy. The leftovers of the Second World War
chemicals of warfare were repackaged and deployed as herbicides and
pesticides. Modern industrial agriculture is a war against the earth
and against farmers. . . The World Trade Organization Agreement on
Agriculture is an agreement on Non-agriculture and Non-food, because
that's what they are promoting. . . Local agriculture is the biggest
peace movement in the world."

A primary theme in her talk was to debunk the myths of modern
agriculture, such as chemicals and poisons can produce good food,
cheap food is good food, and chemical farming increases production.
She said, "An honest agriculture needs honest prices. Organic done
right is more productive than chemical farming."

Note that all of the representatives from Africa, Asia, and Latin
America were united in their concern that food exports from Europe
and the United States was increasing food insecurity. How can this
be? The fact about famine in the 20th century is that famine most
often results from politics and economics, not from an absolute lack
of food. Most of the world's farmers are actually subsistence
farmers. Most of their production is consumed by their families, but
they generally have to sell some crops to have some money for taxes
and things they need that they don't produce. When the United States
and Europe subsidizes the production of mass commodities like corn
and wheat, this stimulates over-production of these crops, which in
turns lowers the price on the world market. If you are farming
10,000 acres, you can afford to deal with such drops in price, but
if you farm 5 acres, a drop in price for your market crops may be
the end of your farming enterprise. People are thus being driven off
the land, and into the giant slums on the edges of cities in
developing countries. The position of the West, and its transnational
agriculture companies, is that this social disruption is of no
concern, all that matters is the economics and the dollars. The
position of the Slow Food movement is that these negative impacts
must be considered in making these international agriculture
decisions.

"In the long run, no nation is healthier than its children or more
prosperous than its farmers." Harry Truman, sign on the wall at
Terra Madre.

The next day I started out with a panel discussion on Farm to School
programs. The first speaker was from the US and operated a local food
restaurant serving 500 meals/day. They buy food from 75 farmers in
their local area. Starting this year, they will be providing
breakfast and lunch each day to 1000 students, with most of the food
coming from the local area.

A second speaker, from Ireland, discussed the trials and tribulations
of establishing a school organic gardening project, which has grown
from 3 plots (each one 13 meters by 7 meters) in 1991 to 11 in 2004,
and incorporates perennials plants including raspberries,
gooseberries, red and black currants. They turn the fruit into jam
and give it to the parents.

The third speaker, from Scotland, discussed their "whole school
approach to nutrition", which incorporates:

+ New nutrition standards, + curriculum development, integrating
nutrition into other subjects + theme days + Each school has a
School Nutrition Action Group, which includes parents, teachers,
kids, and cooks). + Incentives, + Programs to make healthy choices
easy and attractive, + They consider this a preventive program
against obesity and heart disease.

She asked, "What is your school lunch room teaching?"

The second half of the workshop considered the potential of farms as
schools. A variety of methods were proposed by speakers, including
educational exhibits at farms, tours, school and youth group visits,
and agro-tourism (spend your vacation on a farm!). Most include some
kind of hands on light manual labor that teaches some agricultural
principle. Many such programs in Europe teach the students how to
bake bread and provide nutritional education. Advocates believe that
these programs help people to "develop their senses and their
appreciation of foods". Tours also often feature environmental
awareness programs, and perhaps most importantly, respect and teach
local, traditional knowledge and skills. It was noted by speakers
that modern society tends to have contempt for this kind of
traditional knowledge, and it is in danger of being lost if we do
not institute programs to ensure the trans-generational transmission
of this important cultural information.

The second workshop I attended was about Strengthening Local Markets,
and featured a panel of successful farmers and organizers involved
with direct farm to customer sales. First on the agenda was Paul
Miller of Full Belly Farm in California. He spoke of the structural
problems of modern agriculture. For decades US policy has officially
been: "Get big or get out." Credit programs, farm subsidies, and
research grants are all designed to favor bigness. Modern industrial
farmers are caught in a Catch 22 situation. Greater yields lead to
lower prices which lead to extreme pressure to cut costs and
maximize production, which in turn lead to lower prices which cause
extreme pressure to cut costs and maximize production, and thus the
vicious cycle continues, it is a "cycle of bigness".

Miller contrasts his partnership operation. 95% of his production is
sold within 100 miles of their farm. Wholesalers and stores buy 25%,
individuals 20% (at the farm or at farmers markets), restaurants 25%,
and 35% via their Community Supported Agriculture program. Some of
the principles that contribute to the success of their operation
include:

(1) They have an integrated program of tree crops, animals, and
vegetables. They grow year round and add value. (2) They never grow
more than they figure they could sell at a fair price. (3) They
maximize the health of their system, starting with the soil. They
grow a very diverse set of crops, and use only organic production
methods. (4) To succeed economically, the farmer must be close to
the end users, and should finish their farm products to the highest
practical level. (5) Create a community of purchasers committed to
paying fair prices for food products. Farmers and their customers
are interdependent. (6) Diverse crops are essential. It is generally
better to grow smaller amounts of more different crops than to grow
a lot of only one or two crops. (7) Explore diverse social aspects,
including involvement with cooperatives, regional branding, and
partnerships with neighbors. (8) Develop a professional and stable
work force, which requires just wages. (9) Existing farmers must
help new farmers get started. One way that Fully Belly Farm does
this is by offering apprenticeships. (10) Local relationships are the
foundation of success and are based on mutual trust.

Over time, this kind of program beings stability, security, and
sustainability to a farming area.

A second panel member was Xavier Rodriguez of Argentina. He works
with a cooperative of small growers with lands on the border of
Argentina and Bolivia. The typical farm size is 1.5 hectares, about
4 acres. With the economic crisis of recent years in Argentina, many
factories and enterprises shut down and in rural areas, many
unemployed people started growing vegetables and trying to sell
them. But they needed access to better markets, so they organized a
cooperative. Wholesale brokers offered such low prices that farmers
couldn't survive, they had to find a way to sell directly to the
public, in reasonably large quantities. Some non-governmental
organizations came along and offered help, but then lost interest
and abandoned this cooperative. Thus, they had to build their own
distribution system, on their own, inventing the structure as they
went along. These folks now believe that this path of independent
development, that was entirely dependent upon their own personal
participation, was critical to their success. The cooperative was
able to get some trucks, and now the cooperative sells its products
in Buenos Aires and other regional population centers by a variety
of methods, including door to door sales, farmers markets, and
roadside stands.

The third workshop I attended was about Marketing Local Foods.

Paul Miller of Full Belly Farm was on this panel too. He said their
entire sales program is relationship driven. "At every point, we
strive to develop a relationship with our customers." They try to get
customers to come to their farms and offer tours, field days, and an
annual Harvest Festival. He says information is critical to success,
and that the food must look good and taste better than supermarket
foods. He said, " Celebration is essential! Organic farmers are
happier farmers!"

A second interesting model was described by Susie Kyle, a western
Washington vegetable grower interested in expanding the access of the
poor to local produce. She spoke of the experience of the Food Bank
Farm of western Massachusets, which gave away 20,000 pounds of
vegetables every year to the poor AND paid off their farm early by
holding fund raisers and getting people to donate money so they
could produce fresh, local, organic food for free distribution to
the poor. They have a "virtual farmers market," - "You click, we
pick, he delivers." See http://www.winlockmeadowsfarm.com/ and
http://www.farmbankproject.com/ for more info.

In Colorado, Tom McCracken is the president of the Tres Rios
Agricultural Co-op, which has 13 members (seven are presently
active). The cooperative consolidates product from its farmer
members in a Denver warehouse and then distributes it to stores and
restaurants in the area.

Besides these structured conversations, there were many opportunities
for spontaneous meetings, introductions, and sharing of experiences.
I met people from many states of the US, Canada, England, Ireland,
France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Mauritania, Kenya, Cameroon,
India, Bangladesh, Finland, Scotland, Bolivia, Norway, Holland, and
Japan, and came home with a stack of business cards and brochures. .

THE OVERTURE OVER, THE OPERA BEGINS!

"Today 30 plants feed 95% of the world's population. In the past 100
years, 250,000 plant varieties have gone extinct and 1 plant variety
disappears every 6 hours. Since the beginning of the 20th century,
Europe has lost more than 75% of its agricultural variety, while the
US has lost 93% of their crop species diversity. One third of native
cattle, sheep, and pig breeds have gone extinct or are on the road
to extinction." Sign on a wall at Terra Madre.

The closing ceremonies were a swirl of emotion, information,
challenge, music, beauty, and wisdom. We again heard from a
representative from each continent. Winona Duke, representing North
America, said, "Life does not belong to corporations." The
representative of Latin America: " Behind food lies thousands of
years of hard and smart work. This comes together here, in this
place, at this Terra Madre gathering." The African representative,
from the Network for Kenyan Organic Farming: "Terra Madre is an
opportunity for small producers and co-producers to meet and share
experiences for the purpose of benefitting the common good. This is
not the end, it is only the beginning of greater things to come. . .
To change from fast foods to slow foods, we must encourage and
strengthen cultural traditions and encourage organic and sustainable
agriculture everywhere. . . We need intellectual honesty about food.
Scientists must stop misleading the public for short term profit. .
. We must not allow our governments to violate the rights and
dignity of people." In his remarks about intellectual honesty, he
echoed a common theme of many speakers at this meeting. Concern was
often expressed about the mis-use and outright falsification of
scientific evidence and its presentation as justifications for the
industrialized manufactured food system.

The representative from Asia was from India, the Association for the
Protection of Bio-diversity. She said, "Terra Madre gives us strength
and reaffirms what we are doing. Terra Madre shows us that food does
not have to be centralized, industrialized, and high technology.
Terra Madre also has highlighted the role of women in traditional
agricultural, a role which modern industrialized agriculture
marginalizes."

The Mayor of Turin spoke for most of us when he said, "This is a
highly political cultural event. Your presence here gives us
strength. This is the United Nations of Food!"

The next to the last speaker was Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food.
His remarks called us to continue our action as we went home.
"Madness is contagious! Without agriculture, gastonomy is useless.
Gastronomy must include food culture, and is for everybody, not just
the rich. The Table of Food must be big enough for everybody,
everyone is entitled to a seat. We must not overlook the shame of
hunger and starvation, we are the ones who must fight hunger, and
this starts with a critical examination of the structures of this
world that encourage hunger and sustain famine." These truths had
been brought out plainly at the opening sessions, as the
representatives from Africa, Asia, and Latin America spoke about how
the food exports - the fruit of over-production stimulated by
subsidy policies - were increasing food insecurity in their areas.

Looking towards the future, he noted the present plan is to have
these Terra Madre meetings evey four years. He said, "What we have
done with Terra Madre is a miracle. Opera always starts with an
overture. This first meeting of Terra Madre is only the overture,
now the real opera starts. When you go back to your homes, wherever
they are, remember that you are not alone."

The final speaker was Prince Charles of Great Britain, who gave a
great summation speech that plainly made the case for local, organic,
and sustainable food production. He described how the implementation
of best modern organic practices has radically increased farm
production in Pakistan, Cuba, and Kenya. His presentation ended with
this inspiring paragraph:

"And the importance of your Movement cannot be overstated. That is,
after all, why I am here -- to try and help draw attention to the
fact that in certain circumstances ""small will always be
beautiful"", and to remind people, as John Ruskin in the 19th
century did, back in England, that ""industry without art is
brutality"". After all, the food you produce is far more than just
food, for it represents an entire culture -- the culture of the
family farm. It represents the ancient tapestry of rural life; the
dedicated animal husbandry, the struggle with the natural elements,
the love of landscape, the childhood memories, the knowledge and
wisdom learnt from parents and grandparents, the intimate
understanding of local climate and conditions, the hopes and fears of
succeeding generations. Ladies and gentlemen, all of you represent
genuinely sustainable agriculture and I salute you."

There are photos of the Terra Madre event on the website of Slow Food
USA at http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ and they also have the complete
text of Carlo Petrini's opening speech. Click on the Terra Madre
icon.
The material on this site is copyrighted by the Weston A. Price Foundation.
Please contact the Foundation for permission if you wish to use the
material for any purpose.

Did you enjoy this article? Click here to become a member of the
Foundation and receive our quarterly journal, Wise Traditions, full
of articles like this one as well as sources of healthy food.

This page was posted on 11/09/04



HOME

The Weston A. Price Foundation, PMB 106-380, 4200 Wisconsin Avenue,
NW, Washington, DC 20016
Phone: (202) 333-HEAL, Email: WestonAPrice@msn.com , Web:
www.westonaprice.org





  • [Livingontheland] TERRA MADRE World Meeting of Food Communities, Tradingpost, 11/12/2004

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page