Slow Food at the Meeting of San Rossore

The presence of Slow Food at the Meeting of San Rossore, that begins today is just one stop on the road that the movement is traveling hand in hand with the Tuscany Regional Authority.

Slow Food has made the pledge to supply global and wide-ranging replies to the questions that agriculture and the environment present on an international level. The methods of Slow Food are to use concrete projects that demonstrate workable solutions, a strategy of intervention that starts with small, positive local experiences to create a common experience and enrich knowledge and learning. It is an approach that is in total correspondence with what the Tuscany Regional Authority has always embraced.

The Meeting of San Rossore is an important opportunity to discuss the themes of globalization and sharing of the earth’s resources, of which food is one of the most urgent matters. This year the meeting opens with the subject of food because only once the problem of assuring food safety to all people has been addressed, with the arrival of a respect for local, traditional methods of production, can the earth’s biodiversity be preserved, the environment conserved, and, with the fair and equal allocation of natural resources, peace be achieved. The first session of the meeting will commence with a speech by Carlo Petrini. Not only will he be a presence at the meeting, but to demonstrate the fact that Slow Food has adopted the slogan “Think globally, act locally”, during the two days of the convention there will be a buffet tasting of 28 Slow Food Presidia, both Italian and international. These are products of extraordinary gastronomic richness, brought to demonstrate how this type of agriculture and artisan production is a valid alternative, both gastronomically and economically, to the homogenization of taste imposed by the industrial and technological model of agriculture.

From 1996, with the beginning of the Ark of Taste, which led naturally to the Presidia project, Slow Food has taken note of the necessity of transforming a pure and simple interest in gastronomy to the guardianship of artisan food production, through action and politics. Through protection of artisan foods, Slow Food also protects local history and the environment.

The collaboration between Slow Food and Tuscany Regional Authority has firm roots.
Tuscany is the region of Italy with the most Slow Food Presidia, thanks to the awareness and support of many Tuscan foundations. The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, that finances projects which encourage the improvement and development of the agro-industrial sector, was born in Tuscany and is growing rapidly. Carlo Petrini, president and founder of Slow Food, is a member of the Florence-based International Commission on the Future of Food, chaired by Vandana Shiva, which has approved the Manifesto on the Future of Food, a set of guidelines for a system of sustainable agriculture taking into account ecological and social issues (the document will be presented at the next world summit in Cancun).

Pres Office: Valter Musso, Alessandra Abbona, Paola Nano
via della Mendicità Istruita, 14 – 12042 Bra (Cuneo)
tel. 0172 419615/ 0172 419666 fax 0172 421293
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