Terra Madre Burkina Faso is about to kick off!

The first Terra Madre in West Africa is coming up this weekend. The event will take place in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and will gather farmers and producers coming from different parts of the country, as well as from Benin, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. The event has been organized by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity as part of Fondazioni for Africa Burkina Faso, an initiative promoting the right to food run by 28 banking foundations which are members of ACRI, the association of Italian savings banks and foundations.

The event will start on February 3 at the French Institute George Méliès in Ouagadougou, where there will be a screening of the documentary La Guerre des Graines (The Seed War) directed by Clément Montfort and Stenka Quillet. The documentary tackles the importance of having free seeds in order to fight big multinationals and hunger in the world.

On February 4, there will be an opening ceremony attended by several authorities, including Jacob Ouédraogo, Minister of Agriculture of Burkina Faso, Armand Roland Pierre Béouindé, Mayor of Ouagadougou City, Yacouba Sawadogo, a well-known international agro-ecologist, and Carlo Petrini, President of Slow Food, who will be unable to attend personally but will send a video from Italy.

After the ceremony, the farmers and producers market will be officially opened and it will allow visitors to discover Slow Food projects and a selection of products of the Terra Madre food communities in Burkina Faso. There will be producers of the two newly established Burkinabe Presidia: Comoé red Rice and Arbollé Yam. There will also be manufacturers from the forest of Comoé-Léraba, the cheesemakers of Peul and, the Boyaba and Tapoa communities, Garango Shea Butter Producers, the Watinoma association, La Saisonnière Educational Garden producers, the community garden producers of Yako and other participating gardens from the 10,000 Gardens in Africa project. There will also be communities from Benin, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Togo.

During the day there will be four different panels, which will tackle urgent issues to be discussed. Everyone is welcomed to join:

• “Produisons (naturellement) ce dont nous avons besoin et consommons (naturellement) ce que nous produisons” at 10am, a panel about the Slow Food philosophy focusing of the words of former president Thomas Sankara: “Let’s produce what we need [naturally], and let’s consume [naturally] what we produce!”.
• “La terre ne ment pas” at 1pm, a panel about agroecology in which participants will be asked to think about how agroecology can feed the world.
• “Mangeons local!” at 3pm, a panel about the nutritional quality of local products.
• “Pour faire un plat il faut une graine” at 5pm, a panel about seeds and GMOs.

The event will end up with a live concert of the Burkinabe artist Ima Hado, who will also run a workshop addressed to children called “A l’ombre du baboab” (in the Baobab shadow).

For a more detailed program, you can visit the Facebook page of the event: https://www.facebook.com/TERRA-MADRE-Burkina-Faso-662358183943623/?fref=ts

Slow Food protects biodiversity with projects around the world. To continue this work, we need everyone’s help and participation. http://donate.slowfood.com/en/

For further information, please contact:

Slow Food coordinator for West Africa

Typhaine Briand – [email protected]

Head of the event communications in Burkina Faso

Jean Victor Ouedraogo [email protected]

Slow Food International Press Office

[email protected] – Twitter: @SlowFoodPress

Terra Madre Burkina Faso has been organized by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity as part of Fondazioni for Africa Burkina Faso, an initiative promoting the right to food run by 28 banking foundations who are members of ACRI, the association of Italian savings banks and foundations, in collaboration with the NGOs and non-profit organizations Acra, Mani Tese, Lvia, Cisv, the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, Ital-Watinoma, the CeSPI research center, 27 migrants’ associations, 15 farmers’ organizations in Burkina Faso and local authorities in Italy. Launched in January 2014, Fondazioni for Africa Burkina Faso wants to tackle the issues that prevent people from accessing enough food while promoting initiatives able to trigger sustainable and long-lasting development. Its areas of action are support for family farming, microfinance, training, food education, the role of women and the involvement of migrants’ associations in Italy. Find out more at www.fondazioniforafrica.org or on Facebook and Twitter.

Slow Food is a global grassroots organization that envisions a world in which all people can access and enjoy food that is good for them, good for those who grow it and good for the planet. Slow Food involves over a million activists, chefs, experts, youth, farmers, fishers and academics in over 160 countries. Among them, a network of around 100,000 Slow Food members are linked to 1,500 local chapters worldwide, contributing through their membership fee, as well as the events and campaigns they organize. As part of the network, more than 2,400 Terra Madre food communities practice small-scale and sustainable production of quality food around the world.