Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Today marks the second annual International Terra Madre Day—a day for 
celebrating eating locally 
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/slow_food/blog_post/international_terra_madre_day_celebrated/

Over 100,000 people today are gathering to celebrate local food, as well as 
to support sustainable and fair food around the world. Terra Madre Day is a 
global event organized by Slow Food International, and is now in its third 
year of promoting good, clean, and fair food for all.

More than 600 events have been planned in 110 countries, each helping draw 
attention to their local food. In Spain, 18 restaurants in Figueres, a city 
in the province of Girona, Catalonia, are participating in a competition for 
the best local and traditional dishes. In Almaty, Kazakhstan, a festival has 
been planned to celebrate the region’s wild apple orchards. This area is the 
only place where the endangered Sievers apple can still be found.

For a Terra Madre celebration in Australia, organizers are preparing a dinner 
made from food that is perfectly good, but that has been rejected for sale 
for cosmetic or other reasons. (For more on the importance of reducing food 
waste, see some of our recent op-eds published on the issue: Food Waste can 
be Recycled to Help Feed the Planet and Simple Lifestyle Changes can Reduce 
Food Waste.)

In the U.S., events are being held in 17 different locations across the 
country. In Ohio, students at Oberlin College are hosting a screening and 
discussion of the documentary Food, Inc. as part of their campaign to 
influence the 2012 Food and Farm Bill. The Terra Madre celebration hosted by 
the Slow Food Orange County convivium in Los Alamitos, California will be 
holding a food swap of homemade goods where people can exchange items of food 
in an effort to strengthen the local food community.

In addition to promoting local foods, Terra Madre Day also looks to raise 
support for Slow Foods’ A Thousand Gardens in Africa project. Launched just 
over a year ago, the initiative aims to create 1,000 school and community 
gardens in 25 African countries in order to improve food sovereignty, 
nutrition, and local environments. Already 394 gardens have been adopted, and 
many events today are looking to raise money to further expand the project.