Terra Madre Brazil 2020 edition takes place in online format and with international repercussions

The Slow Food event’s program includes the participation of family farmers and peasants,
educators, researchers, and advocates of access
to good, clean and fair food for all

Terra Madre Brazil is an event within the new, extraordinary edition of Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2020, a six-month journey starting October 8^th, that includes a mix of innovative digital formats and diffuse off-line events. An event that will unite the thousands of nodes of the Slow Food network and its million activists, as well as many other organizations, institutions and businesses.

Family farmers, activists, artisanal fishermen, cheesemakers, beekeepers, quilombolas (descendants and remnants of communities formed by enslaved fugitives), indigenous peoples, traditional peoples and communities, journalists and cooks who make up the diverse mosaic of the Slow Food network will virtually participate in the 3rd edition of Terra Madre Brazil (TMB) from the 17 to the 22 of November 2020.

The event has the collaboration of the Government of the State of Bahia, through the Secretariat of Rural Development / Company of Development and Regional Action (SDR / CAR).

“Because Terra Madre Brazil has not taken place for the last ten years we decided to pivot, adapting it to an online version to ensure the event will still happen. Before the pandemic, the Slow Food Brazil network and the event’s partner organizations were already mobilized, awaiting this opportunity of debate and exchange, dissemination of projects and strengthening of alliances. In this way, the Slow Food movement in Brazil can continue with strength and new breath in 2021,” says Valentina Bianco, coordinator of institutional partnerships of the Slow Food Association of Brazil.

The event organization sees opportunities in this new format and the chance to utilize virtual platforms when in-person events are not possible. “There are numerous advantages, which include extending and expanding the reach of the event and reducing its cost. Also, there is a great opportunity in doing the event in the birth of this new reality, when life and consumption choices are made more consciously. Terra Madre Brazil 2020 should see these advantages as real assets,” highlights Guilherme Cerqueira Martins e Souza, Market Intelligence coordinator for the Bahia Proditiva Project, carried out by CAR.

Many of the rural communities participating in Terra Madre Brazil have limited internet access. Knowing this, some of the 120 registered rural communities who may be in need of support, will be provided with mobile data. For those who are speaking for the event, Slow Food Brazil will also offer structural and logistical support.

Adilson Ribeiro, a Bahian goat cheese producer, president of the central cooperatives Central da Caatinga, and member of the Slow Food network, considers the event an important moment for Brazilian family farming. According to him, “It is an important moment for Bahia and Brazil. It will be a very rich space for exchanging experiences and knowledge, and allow opportunities for understanding. Being a part of this network brings us a great enrichment, not only in knowledge, but also in the development of regional cultures that have been lost over time. The Slow Food movement values ​​the history of knowledge and flavors that are being rescued by rural communities.”

Programming

This edition is composed of three main themes that guide the entire program: Food Culture and Biodiversity, Food Education, Food Security with emphasis on School Feeding, Political Impact and Civil Society Mobilization. Terra Madre Brazil coincides with Dia da Consciência Negra (Black Awareness Day) on November 20, where there will be a program dedicated to racial issues and traditional food of terreiro (place of ceremonies and offerings in Afro-Brazilian culture).

Among the activities are conversation circles with members of the Slow Food Brazil network – from rural and urban communities – and partner organizations for debating and strengthening joint initiatives within the three themes highlighted above.

The educational space will consist of laboratories for children, and taste workshops. They will include cooks from the Slow Food network, whose work exhibit the value of Brazilian biomes, and representatives of rural communities engaged in the safeguarding of foods from the Ark of Taste (international catalog of foods of plant, animal and processed products that are the result of traditional techniques and knowledge, and make up the Brazilian socio-biodiversity).

Terra Madre Brazil also has a rich artistic-cultural program: screenings of films and documentaries followed by chats, cultural presentations, an interactive map dedicated to the Slow Food Communities, Family Farming and Geographical Indications, and an installation that seeks to reproduce the universe of cassava and the production of its flour. The attraction focuses on three regions: the North as the origin center of cassava, the Northeast with flour houses, and the South with the presence of mills. This space values the heritage, food security and food culture aspects that permeate the territories where flours are produced using traditional techniques and knowledge.

The end of the event takes place over the weekend with two great Terra Madre Dialogues, which are proposed as spaces for debate, collective reflection and inspiration on the food system and its impacts in terms of food culture, social justice and ecological balance.

About Slow Food Brazil
Slow Food began as a protest against McDonald’s first store in Italy, in 1986. It was a political, symbolic and philosophical opposition to fast food and what this food model represents: the massive standardization of poor quality food, the chemical-agricultural model dependent on large-scale production and unfair working conditions.

Slow Food philosophy activists and advocates are part of the local action groups called Slow Food Communities, which bring together people from different spheres and with diverse interests in food. These groups weave a food network that have the potential to think and build alternatives to the current food system at local, regional and global levels.

In Brazil, the movement arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 2000, and held its first two editions of Terra Madre in 2007 and 2010 respectively, both in Brasília. Since 2013 the Slow Food Brazil network has had the institutional support of the Slow Food Association of Brazil, a Civil Society Organization of Public Interest that acts as guardian of Slow Food’s programs, philosophy and brand in Brazil.

About CAR
Through the Regional Development and Action Company – CAR, the Government of Bahia’s mission is to promote regional development through socio-productive inclusion. They have been working hard to combat poverty in rural communities, prioritize the strengthening of family farming, economic solidarity, commercialization, territorialization, water security, resilience to drought, and sustainable management of the environment.

CAR has been focusing on the regional potential, encouraging associations and cooperatives who invest in activities and products that effectively generate employment and income, and stimulate the development of several productive chains: beekeeping, goat farming, fruit growing, sheep farming, chocolate production, and milk processing.

SERVICE
Terra Madre Brazil 2020 – Online Edition
October 17-22, 2020
Check the schedule details on the website www.terramadrebrasil.org.br

Terra Madre – Salone del Gusto 2020
From 8 to 12 October 2020 to April 2021
Check the schedule details at www.terramadresalonedelgusto.com

Free participation

Press information:

Sara Campos
(61) 99209-5309
[email protected]

Slow Food International Press Office
Paola Nano, Gioia Baggio
+39 329 8321285
[email protected]