Inside the Slow Food Movement

Slow Food Movement – Campaigns, Biodiversity, Education

These three words, seen through the lens of the Slow Food movement, refer to hundreds of concrete, everyday experiences. And to knowledge, traditions, flavors, hands…Those of the African farmers, who, cultivating a small food garden, regain possession of their food sovereignty, pride in their own food, and hope for a better future that speaks the language of local products. Those of the French children, who, digging their fingers into dark earth, learn to appreciate the value of a tuber or a radish. Those of the Palestinian women who have started a social enterprise in Nablus, centered around the local culinary culture, running educational, social and cultural programs. Those of Serbian herders, working to safeguard local livestock breeds at risk of extinction. Those of the Uruguayan and American consumers who are rightly demanding to see GMOs listed on food labels and the right to choose what they eat. Those of the young people who with the freshness of their ideas and their music are conquering Europe.

The Slow Food and Terra Madre network, ever more creative and continually expanding, teaches us that when faced with the great paradoxes of the global food system, resignation is not the right response. Instead, we must respond with determination, intelligence, confidence and an ability to think differently, introducing small but significant changes into our daily life. It teaches us that the energy contained in all the smiles and all the hands that you will see while leafing through this Almanac has an enormous potential, and that together everyone is contributing to a slow but radical transformation. We know that much of the food that the market palms off on us does not contribute to our well-being nor to the health of our planet nor to the survival of farming communities. But we also know that alternatives exist. Or that we can build them for ourselves.

This is our strength.