Slow Food home | About us | Foundation | Editore | Sloweb | Press Office | Store     Sloweek - On-line News by Slow Food Sloweek Archive     Slowing the CAP Slow Food joins the official debate for a reformed Common Agricultural Policy ...     Bundanoon to Concord: Go For It! As the first town in the world to ban bottled water, Bundanoon, Australia offers ...     Stop Land Grabbing Now Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity joins campaign to say no to the principles of ...         News     Search:     Voices from the Slow world:     News from Terramadre     Along the Silk Road 29 Jun 10 A research group will visit Terra Madre communities along the tracks of Marco Polo, investigating the genetics of taste ...       News from Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity     Salt of the Earth 12 Jul 10 During the last trip organized by the Slow Food Foundation, we visited the Rif, one of the poorest and most disquieting areas of the country. ...       News from University Gastronomic Sciences     UNISG launches Advanced School in Sustainability and Food Policies 25 May 10 Italy’s University of Gastronomic Sciences launches an on-line summer school program focused on sustainability and food policies (July 19 – October 25) ...       Watch & Listen     Visit our new multimedia section! 22 Jun 07 Where you will find audio, video and text files to listen to, watch and download. ...           Slow Talk 28 Jul 10     Agriculture in Crisis by Carlo Petrini What can you buy today for nine euro cents? It’s not enough for an SMS. Maybe you could buy a few nails. I can’t think of much else, except for a kilo of carrots, wholesale. And that’s just one of many possible examples when it comes to food. Maybe readers haven’t realized, because the food they buy always costs the same, if not more, but the prices that farmers receive have been in constant decline for years. Almost all farms are producing at a loss and surprisingly this fact goes almost unnoticed. Who in Italy still cares about our agriculture? The sector is in more of a crisis now that at any other time since the post-war period. Just think that a quintal (100 kilos) of wheat is paid between €13 and €15, a price considerably lower than even 20 years ago, when it cost €25. In the last five-year period alone the price has gone done by around 30%. And in the meantime there has been an inflation in production costs: Trade associations have shown that to farm a hectare of wheat today costs a farmer €900, while the resulting crop can be sold for €600. I challenge anyone to want to work in these conditions. All the agricultural sectors are experiencing this crisis. Cattle and pig farmers are facing a real catastrophe. In the dairy industry alone, from over 180,000 farms in 1989 we’re now down to the current 43,000. The average cost of a kilo of pork in 1990 was €1.20, and in 2009 it was the same. We’ve got to the point that we need “fair trade” for our own farmers, not just those in poor countries. According to official statistics, in 2009 wholesale prices in Italy fell compared to the previous year by 71% for carrots, 53% for peaches, 30% for wheat and milk and 19%...             Bulgaria - 27 Jul 10     Brotherhood Across the Balkans     A communal desire to support small-scale traditional producers in the face of growing threats from regulations and the food industry united food communities from ten countries across the...         News archive     Italy - 22 Jul 10     Dream Canteens     Slow Food buildings a strong network of schools putting good, clean and fair in the canteen ...     Belgium - 16 Jul 10     A Slow Voice in Policy Reform     Slow Food President Carlo Petrini participates in a public debate conference on Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy ...     Denmark - 14 Jul 10     Convivial Danes     Danish convivial join the country’s largest fair of artisan producers to share the Slow Food message ...     Argentina - 08 Jul 10     Flavors from the Andes to Patagonia     Terra Madre Argentina unites producers, cooks, academics and consumers in Buenos Aires ...     Macedonia - 02 Jul 10     Preserving Figs and a Gastronomic Heritage     The Wild Fig Slatko Presidium is created to protect a traditional preserve ...     Croatia - 23 Jun 10     Thank you for Everything, Giani     Farewell to Giani Banich, a friend and dynamic figure in the Slow Food movement ...     Archive       Slow Talk Archive       Previous news archive   Slow Food 2010 - All rights reserved - P.iva 91008360041 - Powered by Blulab