Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Slow foodies unveil declaration of sustainability

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Slow foodies unveil declaration of sustainability
  • Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:24:38 -0600


Slow Food Nation: Revolutionary diet
Slow foodies unveil declaration of sustainability
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/28/232053/222

Some of the leading voices in the movement for a sustainable agriculture
system stood together Thursday to unveil the "Declaration for Healthy Food
and Agriculture," a 12-point set of principles for reorienting American food
away from corporate farms and long-haul delivery to local producers and land
stewardship.

The luminaries, including movement bigwigs like Alice Waters, Dan Imhoff, and
Marion Nestle, stood together inside San Francisco City Hall to read the
declaration. The event was held on the eve of Slow Food Nation, a three-day
gathering that promises to showcase talks on food policy, the food of great
chefs, and the farmers who, at the end of the day, are the ones filling the
country's foodbasket.

The declaration remains a draft document. The organizers are soliciting
public input for 90 days, with the hope of delivering a final document to the
nation's policymakers early next year and shaping debate over the next farm
bill.

Grist is in San Francisco and will be filing updates over the holiday
weekend. In the meantime, here's the full text of the declaration unveiled on
Thursday:

At the Slow Food Nation
Alice Waters signs the Slow Food Declaration.

We, the undersigned, believe that a healthy food system is necessary to
meet the urgent challenges of our time. Behind us stands a half-century of
industrial food production, underwritten by cheap fossil fuels, abundant land
and water resources, and a drive to maximize the global harvest of cheap
calories. Ahead lie rising energy and food costs, a changing climate,
declining water supplies, a growing population, and the paradox of widespread
hunger and obesity.

These realities call for a radically different approach to food and
agriculture. We believe that the food system must be reorganized on a
foundation of health: for our communities, for people, for animals, and for
the natural world. The quality of food, and not just its quantity, ought to
guide our agriculture. The ways we grow, distribute, and prepare food should
celebrate our various cultures and our shared humanity, providing not only
sustenance, but justice, beauty and pleasure.

Governments have a duty to protect people from malnutrition, unsafe food,
and exploitation, and to protect the land and water on which we depend from
degradation. Individuals, producers, and organizations have a duty to create
regional systems that can provide healthy food for their communities. We all
have a duty to respect and honor the laborers of the land without whom we
could not survive. The changes we call for here have begun, but the time has
come to accelerate the transformation of our food and agriculture and make
its benefits available to all.

We believe that the following twelve principles should frame food and
agriculture policy, to ensure that it will contribute to the health and
wealth of the nation and the world. A healthy food and agriculture policy:

1. Forms the foundation of secure and prosperous societies, healthy
communities, and healthy people.

2. Provides access to affordable, nutritious food to everyone.

3. Prevents the exploitation of farmers, workers, and natural resources;
the domination of genomes and markets; and the cruel treatment of animals, by
any nation, corporation or individual.

4. Upholds the dignity, safety, and quality of life for all who work to
feed us.

5. Commits resources to teach children the skills and knowledge essential
to food production, preparation, nutrition, and enjoyment.

6. Protects the finite resources of productive soils, fresh water, and
biological diversity.

7. Strives to remove fossil fuel from every link in the food chain and
replace it with renewable resources and energy.

8. Originates from a biological rather than an industrial framework.

9. Fosters diversity in all its relevant forms: diversity of domestic and
wild species; diversity of foods, flavors and traditions; diversity of
ownership.

10. Requires a national dialog concerning technologies used in
production, and allows regions to adopt their own respective guidelines on
such matters.

11. Enforces transparency so that citizens know how their food is
produced, where it comes from, and what it contains.

12. Promotes economic structures and supports programs to nurture the
development of just and sustainable regional farm and food networks.

Our pursuit of healthy food and agriculture unites us as people and as
communities, across geographic boundaries, and social and economic lines. We
pledge our votes, our purchases, our creativity, and our energies to this
urgent cause.






  • [Livingontheland] Slow foodies unveil declaration of sustainability, Tradingpost, 09/01/2008

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page