Slow Food home | About us | Foundation | Editore | Sloweb | Press Office | Store     Sloweb     Home | Sloweek | Voices from the Slow world | Slow Talk | News | Watch & Listen             Cacao brings Ecuador and Mexico together 25 May 10 - News da Fondazione One of the most important benefits of a Presidium is being able to network with producers and technical experts and learn from situations around the world. By talking and meeting, people can exchange knowledge and ideas, discuss production techniques, problems and solutions. In the latest example of this process, in April three representatives of the Chontalpa Cacao Presidium from Mexico visited the Cacao Nacional Presidium in Ecuador. The Mexican Presidium was created from a small group of producers who grow their cacao organically and use traditional processing methods; the Ecuadorian Presidium developed from some Quinchua producers who had formed the Kallari Cooperative to protect the small numbers of remaining Nacional trees and help native communities to improve their processes for cocoa bean fermentation and drying. During their week-long visit, the Mexican producers were able to look round the cacao plantations, observe the fermentation and drying facilities, see where the chocolate was made, meet the managers of the cooperative and study the organization at all stages of the chain. The Ecuadorian Presidium is a very interesting project. It is one of the few involving native communities, which have a shared facility for fermenting and drying the beans. This enables a standardized high quality product to be achieved, which has become famous and even exported to the USA. This opportunity to study the Ecuadorian project in detail was a valuable stimulus for the Mexican producers to develop and improve the Tabasco project. "We are very happy that we had the opportunity to find out about the Kallari project. It is admirable, a real example of well-organized sustainable production", observed Alma Rosa Medina Garcés, coordinator of the Presidium and Director of the Asesoría Técnica en Cultivos Orgánicos, the local association which has coordinated the producers since 2000. “This visit will be a great help for the work we are doing to develop the Chontalpa Cacao Presidium\".   News archive from Terramadre News archive from Slowfood Foundation for Biodiversity News archive from University of Gastronomic Sciences News archive from Watch & Listen           News     United States - 01 Sep 10     Eataly in New York     The philosophy and campaigns promoted by Slow Food over the past twenty years to strengthen regional, tasty and sustainable food, and reconnect consumers with the origin of their food, have...           News archive     Brazil - 17 Aug 10     Gastromotiva     Terra Madre chef and Slow Food convivium empower disadvantaged youth to enter culinary careers ...     Russia - 16 Aug 10     Biodiversity Hangs in the Balance     Slow Food joins the protest against destruction of Europe’s largest repository of rare fruit ...     United Kingdom - 13 Aug 10     Food Justice     Slow Food UK praises social justice report’s call for action ...     Philippines - 10 Aug 10     Against the Grain     The Indigenous Taguibong people in the Philippines continue to practice the traditional rice threshing and milling methods of their ancestors ...     Georgia - 05 Aug 10     Meeting in the Birthplace of the Vine     First Terra Madre Georgia held with a focus on wine and small producers ...     Italy - 03 Aug 10     Strengthening the Indigenous Voice     Slow Food enters into a partnership to advocate for indigenous groups around the world ...     Archive previous news   Slow Food 2010 - All rights reserved - P.iva 91008360041 - Powered by Blulab