PRESS RELEASEJAPANWhat a boost for the Slow Food international movement! In Tokyo yesterday, the Italian Minister of Agriculture Gianni Alemanno told the Italian news agency ANSA that his Japanese counterpart Tsutomu Takebe is interested to find out more about Slow Food. More specifically, Takebe has asked for information and literature about the activities and strategies of the movement with a view towards future collaboration.
‘This is an extraordinary piece of news,’ said Carlo Petrini, president and founder of the Slow Food Movement, from Bra, ‘and it comes from a country where our association is developing incredibly well, and where our ideas are winning a great deal of attention. In June we’ll be in Tokyo to present the Salone Del Gusto 2002, while in October, we’ll be presenting a selection of our Presidium products in Japan’.
Slow Food has officially invited the Japanese Minister of Agriculture to its National Congress, which will take place on June 7-9 at Riva del Garda, in the north-east of Italy. Gianni Alemanno is also slated to attend.
As Petrini concluded, ‘We find that the principles that have guided our movement for years now are starting to attract more and more attention at an international level. All this can help consolidate relations between Italy and Japan, especially in terms of the protection and promotion of quality food production, the rediscovery and defense of eno-gastronomic traditions, and, of course, the safeguarding of biodiversity’.