December highlights at Terra Madre

What a rollercoaster 2020 has been. Terra Madre isn’t slowing down as we reach the end of the calendar year, of course: our finishing line is much further off! There’s lots to discover and explore in December, including several dedicated training sessions for capacity building both within our network and beyond. Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2020 is the most important event dedicated to good, clean and fair food and small-scale agriculture in the world, organized by Slow Food, the City of Turin and the Region of Piedmont. This year the 13th edition of the event, in light of the recent pandemic, has been developed by Slow Food as a six-month journey, both digital and physical.

So what are the highlights to look forward to in December?

• December 1 – Mapping your markets: taking stock of your public market system
  Public markets offer many benefits to public health, social life, and local economies. Yet markets today face many challenges that prevent them from reaching their full potential, such as a lack of government support and lack of investment. The market cities initiative aims to address these challenges by establishing market city strategies to create new infrastructure, policies, and investments in public market systems at the citywide, regional, or national levels. In this webinar, we will walk you through our method and free tools available to survey and map an area’s public market system. Market leaders will discuss how the process of collecting and analyzing data on their market systems has helped them hone in on their local market city strategies and advocacy efforts.

  Speakers:

  ● Furaha Abwe, Urban Planning for Community Change, Tanzania
  ● Kristie Daniel, HealthBridge Foundation, Canada
  ● Richard McCarthy, Slow Food International, USA
  ● Kurt Wheeler, Project for Public Spaces, USA
  ● Jennifer Antos, Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Markets, USA

  Register here to take part.

• December 6 – Rivers connect the world. Salmon rivers
  Salmon are magical creatures that uniquely connect ocean and land through their incredible lifecycle. Yet wild salmon runs throughout the rivers of the northern hemisphere have drastically declined or completely disappeared in the past 50 years, except for the the pristine rivers that feed Bristol Bay, Alaska. This program will delve into efforts to preserve Bristol Bay and restore wild salmon to the rivers of the world.
  This forum was made possible by the support of the Lighthouse Foundation and forms part of Rivers Connect the World curated by Dr. Gary Granata, member of Slow Food New Orleans and founder of Vanishing Foodways, a project to explore, collect and share stories of traditional food systems and cultures along the river basins and coastal regions of the world.
  Register at the link above to participate in the event.
• December 12 – Afro-descendant in the Americas: the protection of traditions and food biodiversity
  The afro-descendant communities in the Americas are named and self-named in different ways: afro-descendant, afro-latin american, black, negros, quilombolas, raizales, etc.
  A series of meetings and forums to listen to these communities, to learn from them about their cultures, their mixed heritages, and their resistance which, over centuries, has allowed them to co-create and protect food biodiversity and flourishing cultures overflowing with pride. Forum with members from Slow Food networks from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and USA.
  Register at the link above to participate in the event.

• December 12 – Open cities, inclusive communities
  How can we set the table of a city so that everyone can enjoy healthy, quality food? What policies and changes do we need to enact in order to make our cities more open, more equal, and more hospitable? What good practices from around the world—from charitable and social canteens to delivery services, shopping donations for those in difficulty, and projects which combine cooking and cultural exchange with migrant communities—can help us create a brighter future for cities?
  Register at the link above to to participate in the event.

• December 13 – The path towards a good, clean and fair food certification
  The classic certification systems (Geographic Indications, Fair Trade, Organic Agriculture…) are not suitable for small-scale farming communities: there’s too much paperwork, costs are far too high, and standardized checks are often carried out on paper only. On the other hand, consumers are demanding more guarantees and information from their food labelling. The Slow Food proposal is a participatory system. Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have been successfully applied in several areas of the world (in Brazil, for instance), and are based on a bottom-up model, where the main stakeholders of the production chain are also the certifying agents, ranging from producers to consumers. The system is built on are transparence, trust, interdependence and the exchange of skills and knowledge. After a two-year trial of three pilot cases: the red bean from Lucca, Italy, the Ogiek community’s honey in Kenya and the Mixtecan county’s agave in Oaxaca, Mexico, Slow Food presents the results of these participatory certification systems and discusses the next steps to take with its partner organizations (such as Ifoam, Ifad and Fao’s Mountain Partnership).
  Register at the link above to to participate in the event.
  

Last but not least, check the latest episodes of the SFYN podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts — in December they’ll be exploring the world of coffee production in highlands around the world.

Thank you for discovering Terra Madre!

For more information:

Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2020 Press Office
Slow Food: [email protected] – Paola Nano, Gioia Baggio (+39 329 8321285)
City of Turin: [email protected] – Luisa Cicero (+39 011 01121932)
Piedmont Region: [email protected] – Donatella Actis (+39 011 4322549)

Terra Madre Salone del Gusto is the most important event dedicated to good, clean and fair food and small-scale agriculture in the world. It is organized by Slow Food, the City of Turin and the Region of Piedmont in cooperation with MIPAAF (the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies) and MATTM (the Italian Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection). Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2020 is made possible thanks to the support of businesses that believe in the projects. Among them, we’d like to thank our Platinum Partners: Pastificio Di Martino, Unicredit, Lavazza, Acqua S.Bernardo, Quality Beer Academy; our Gold Partners: Agugiaro&Figna, Astoria, BBBell. With the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, Associazione delle fondazioni di origine bancaria del Piemonte. With the contribution of IFAD and the EU. In collaboration with SANA and Turismo Torino e Provincia.