SLOW FOOD PRESIDIA SLOW FOOD PRESIDIA CONTENTS 4 Slow Food is... 7 Biodiversity According to Slow Food 9 Slow Food Presidia 10 Tell it on the Label 12 The Slow Food Presidia Brand Editors: Francesca Baldereschi, Salvatore Ciociola, Eleonora Giannini, Serena Milano, Raffaella Ponzio 13 Slow Food Chefs’ Alliance Editorial team: Andrea Amato, Andrea Anania, Elena Aniere, Annalisa Audino, Carlotta Baitone, Valentina Bassanese, Valentina Bianco, Typhaine Briand, Roba Bulga, Elisabetta Cane, Silvia Ceriani, 14 A Brand for Presidia Coffee Elisa Demichelis, Emanuele Dughera, Alessandro Ferri, Tiziana Gazzera, Valerie Ganio Vecchiolino, John Kariuki, Michela Lenta, Marta Messa, Eleonora Olivero, Pia Radtke, Michele Rumiz, Veronika Sadlonova, Piero Sardo, Tetyana Smelkova, Anandi Soans 16 Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity Supporters Translation: Bess Mucke, Carla Ranicki Editing: Simone Gie, Cate Mann, Elanor Bermingham 19 Slow Food Presidia Layout and graphics: Alessia Paschetta, Claudia Saglietti 20 Europe Cover photo: Harenna Forest Wild Coffee Presidium, Ethiopia © Paola Viesi 34 Italy Printing: La Stamperia – Carrù (Cn, Italy) – Printed on recycled paper 138 Africa 149 Americas 159 Asia and Oceania co-financed by the European Union The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the author; the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. 3 SLOW © Peter Blystone FOOD © Paola viesi © Raimondo Cusmano IS... … a network of members ... food and taste education Slow Food is an international organization committed to ensuring everyone has the Education is fundamental to Slow Food’s strategies and cuts across all of its projects right to access and enjoy good food: good for eaters, producers and the environ- and activities. To Slow Food, educating means promoting the pleasure of food, ment. It was founded as a non-profit organization in 1989 to combat the spread of awareness in purchasing choices, respect for nature and the seasons, and apprecia- fast food culture and the disappearance of local food traditions and works to raise tion of producers and their knowledge to children, young people and adults. awareness of the impact our food choices have on the world around us. Slow Food With the Master of Food, Taste Workshops, school gardens, conferences and semi- believes that everyone has the right to quality food and, consequently, each of us has nars, Slow Food is bringing the public closer to food and taste education. Since 2004, a responsibility to protect the heritage of biodiversity, culture and inter-generational the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo has also offered multidisciplinary knowledge that make eating one of the fundamental pleasures of life. courses that merge humanities and sciences, sensory training and communications, campus-based activities and study trips around Italy and the world, to provide an Slow Food involves millions of people who share the philosophy of “good, clean understanding of the complexity and interdisciplinary nature of food. and fair” food; a network of passionate chefs, experts, youth, producers, fishers and academics in more than 150 countries. Included in this movement are 100,000 > Find out more about Slow Food’s education projects: www.slowfood.com/education members joined in 1,500 local groups, who contribute financially to the association through membership fees and participate in events organized in their region. There ... biodiversity protection are also 2,000 Terra Madre food communities who are engaged in small-scale sus- In order to safeguard, defend and promote food biodiversity and to strengthen local tainable food production. communities, Slow Food, through the Slow Food Foundation, coordinates and sponsors a number of projects to support small-scale food producers: the Presidia, the 10,000 > Find out more about Slow Food’s activities: www.slowfood.com Gardens in Africa, Earth Markets and the Ark of Taste. > Find out more about the Slow Food Foundation’s activities and projects: www.slowfoodfoundation.org 4 5 BIODIVERSITY © Adele Obice ACCORDING TO SLOW FOOD ... Terra Madre Biodiversity is the diversity of life, from the simplest level (genes and bacteria) to the Terra Madre is a global network bringing together all those who want to act to most complex (animal and plant species, ecosystems). preserve, encourage and promote methods of fishing, farming and food production that are sustainable and in harmony with nature, the landscape and tradition. Every Biodiversity allows plants and animals to counter the unexpected and adapt to cli- day, the Terra Madre family is growing, becoming richer and more organized. The first matic changes, parasite attacks and diseases. A varied biological system is equipped members of this network were the food communities, who have since been joined by with the necessary antibodies to deal with harmful organisms and to regain its own chefs, academics, young people and musicians. equilibrium; a system with low diversity is instead very fragile. The driving force behind the global network are the meetings that, since 2004, have For this reason, protecting biodiversity is the most important insurance we can take been held regularly in every continent in the world. These gatherings give food pro- out for our future. ducers, farmers, academics, chefs, fishers and NGOs a chance to come together and share knowledge and experiences. If biodiversity disappears, what will happen to our food? Together with wild flora and fauna, many plants domesticated by man and animal > Find food communities in your region or network events: www.terramadre.org breeds selected for their milk or meat are disappearing. According to the FAO, 75% of edible plant varieties have been irreversibly lost. Today 60% of the world’s food is provided by three cereals (wheat, rice and corn) and the human diet is based upon a few selected hybrid varieties, sold to farmers by a handful of multinationals. This is why Slow Food, through its Foundation, is putting in place projects to protect agricultural biodiversity all around the world. 6 7 FIND OUT MORE SLOW Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity Tel. +39 0172 419701 Fax +39 0172 419725 © Paolo Andrea Montanaro © Paolo [email protected] Andrea Montanaro © Paolo FOOD PRESIDIA Biodiversity protection projects • There are more 450 Slow Food Presidia, in 56 countries around the world. In order to protect biodiversity, we must first understand it. To do this, Slow Food • They involve more than 13,000 small-scale food producers: farmers, fishers, created the Ark of Taste, a project to collect and catalogue plant and animal species butchers, herders, cheesemakers, bakers and more. as well as food products like cheeses, cured meats, breads and sweets. • They are concrete virtuous examples of a new agricultural model, based on quality, Everyone can get involved by nominating a product to save on the website the recovery of traditional knowledge, respect for the seasons and animal welfare. www.slowfoodfoundation.org/ark • They support small-scale traditional productions at risk of disappearing, endorse unique regions, recover ancient crafts and processing techniques, safeguard native The Ark of Taste is a catalogue of products, but Slow Food also runs projects that breeds and fruit and vegetable varieties from extinction. directly involve the food producers: the Presidia. The Slow Food Presidia take concre- • They save products which are good (of high quality and rooted in the local culture), te action to safeguard a traditional food at risk of extinction (an Ark product) thus clean (made using sustainable methods and with respect for the local area), and becoming the operational phase of the Ark. Presidia are also established to protect a fair (produced in conditions that respect people, their rights and their culture, while traditional technique at risk of being lost (fishing, breeding, processing, farming etc.) providing a fair return). or preserve a rural landscape (for example, ancient olive groves or citrus orchards). • They strengthen local economies and encourage the creation of a strong alliance between producers and consumers. Two other important tools used to protect, enhance and promote biodiversity are the Slow Food gardens (family, community and school) and the Earth Markets, which The Slow Food Presidia are part of the Terra Madre network of food com- unite small-scale producers and consumers. munities and are promoted and coordinated by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity. > To discover more about the Slow Food Foundation’s activities around the world, > The official list of Presidia around the world and producers involved in the visit www.slowfoodfoundation.org Slow Food project can be found on the website www.slowfoodfoundation.org 9 8 9 TELL IT Andrea Montanaro © Paolo ON THE LABEL cured meats, sweets and other products and their truly artisanal production methods. So, while we may encourage consumers to read labels before buying, unfortunately they rarely provide the detailed information necessary to make an informed choice. Slow Food believes that the quality of a food is best expressed through its story, begin- Slow Food has developed a new label, which could represent a small revolution for food ning with the product’s origin (the region) and including the methods used during cultiva- product communication: the narrative label. tion, processing and preserving as well as its sensory and nutritional characteristics. Only such