A Slow Voice in Policy Reform

Slow Food International President Carlo Petrini will participate in the public debate conference on the future of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the EU’s system of agricultural subsidies and programs. At “CAP post-2013”, taking place in Brussels on July 19 and 20 and convened by Dacian Ciolos, the European commissioner responsible for agriculture and rural development, Petrini will advocate the Slow Food philosophy: We need to change the industrialized, reductionist, market-oriented food system and remember the links between food and people and to work with the heritage of traditional knowledge. Quality agriculture must be based on the protection of regional specialties that have historically been the characteristic of Europe.

Petrini will chair one of the parallel sessions, a discussion workshop entitled “The Future Role of the CAP in Promoting the Quality and Diversity of Food Supply.” This will be an important recognition of Slow Food’s role and its work in Europe and the world. It is also a positive sign of attention towards those values the association works towards: protection of small-scale artisanal food production, defense of plant and animal biodiversity, conservation of the rural environment and a revaluation of the role of agriculture as a potential driving force for the economy.

Slow Food has contributed to the online debate with a document which can be read on the European Commission’s website (in the stakeholders section). In brief, “We need a transition from a set of political instruments that act on agriculture to a food policy based on the links between economy, territory and people, links that are crucial to development. Agriculture plays – or can play – a crucial role in many sectors, from health to climate change, from rights to economy, from education to biodiversity protection, but what matters is the capacity to create coherent policies connected to several areas, adding this challenge to the one already inherent in the creation of connected – and binding – policies between member States.”

Click here for the full article.
Click here for Slow Food’s stakeholders contribution