Terra Terra Madre around the world

From Azerbaijan to Uganda, six months of food diversity events all over the world

Farm visits, conferences, educational activities, tastings and much more besides. The Slow Food world is in action across every continent, organizing events—where health and safety conditions allow—to fortify the international community of sustainable food producers and mindful consumers. This is a movement that, thanks to the way it uses natural resources and makes buying decisions, possesses the wherewithal to help solve the major crises that the world is currently experiencing.

Below are a few examples of events in the physical and digital program that allow us, at last, to see for ourselves that Terra Madre is everywhere every day.

We begin on October 8 in the UK with Terra Madre Fringe: five days of virtual events focused on the British restaurant business and food supply chain’s response to Covid-19, sustainable mussel farming, plus farm visits and screenings of films such as the documentary When Tomatoes Met Wagner (Greece, 2019). Chefs will host show-cooking events and debates on catering and their role in educating the general public. There’ll also be at-home tastings of Scottish Ark of Taste products, British charcuterie, dairy specialties, ciders and many other food products.

Slow Food Germany also begins its Terra Madre program on October 8 with a round table and a photography flash mob on bio-cultural diversity and how European institutions can use EU funding (beginning with the CAP) to sustain this diversity. The six months of Terra Madre feature events organized around three themes: thinking about, tasting and changing the world. The month of November will be dedicated to biodiversity, with workshops and tastings that explore Ark of Taste products.

In Cuba there are events organized by the Plassiga Slow Food Community as part of the Finca la China in Havana agro-ecological festival. On Wednesday October 7, they’ll stage a market with the farm’s produce, including fruit and vegetables from the Ark of Taste, plus educational activities on healthy food, agro-ecology and gastronomy. On Thursday 8 a conference of experts will focus on the subject of food and health, particularly regarding the eating habits of Cubans, hygiene and food preservation.

Terra Madre Philippines launches a six-month events program which begins on October 13, with dozens of physical and digital meetings focusing on food sovereignty, regenerative agriculture and the need to support local communities—especially the poorest in the large cities whose access to food has deteriorated during the crisis of the last few months—by teaching them how to recognize local produce and use it to make healthy, tasty dishes.

The farmers, activists, artisan fishers, cheesemakers, beekeepers, quilombolas (descendants and members of communities of former slaves), indigenous populations, journalists and cooks who combine to form the great Slow Food network in Brazil host the the third edition of Terra Madre Brasil from November 17 to 22, whose three keynote themes will be food culture and biodiversity, food education and security, especially in schools, and the political impact and mobilization of civil society. Educational activities include children’s workshops and guided tastings. The event involves cooks whose work demonstrates the importance of Brazilian ecosystems and representatives of rural communities committed to protecting Ark of Taste products. Terra Madre Brasil will also include a packed artistic and cultural program, with screenings of films and documentaries, debates, cultural events, an interactive map of Slow Food Communities, family farms and geographical indications, and an installation depicting the world of manioca and the production of its flour.

Protecting biodiversity means consolidating food security and protecting food sovereignty: to that end Food Wise 2020 is being organized in Uganda for November 27. This is an opportunity to promote food culture, celebrate small producers who work for good, clean and fair food, and, of course, to reflect upon the close link between our food and the climate. Guests will explore traditional food heritage in many ways: from a Terra Madre Kitchen to tastings, from lectures to debates and workshops in which they will be able to see with their own eyes how food travels from farm to fork.

A medley of events across the world celebrate Slow Food projects: the theme of biodiversity is very much to the fore with the Ark of Taste, the Slow Food Presidia and the Slow Food Cooks’ Alliance, and there will be no lack of activities devoted to the short supply chains with farmers’ markets, Earth Markets, and taste education through school gardens.

In Serbia, on October 3-4, Crvena Ranka Days will celebrate the plums used to make the local grappa, Gledić rakija, a Slow Food Presidium. Producers and agronomists have been invited to the two-day event to study this and other heirloom varieties, to focus attention on the survival of small family farms, and to protect biodiversity and reduce the impact of food systems on the climate.

In Poland things kick off on October 8 with a Slow Food Masterclass Dinner in Kraków, the first in a series organized by the convivium to spread the word about the Ark of Taste and the Cooks’ Alliance nationwide. From November 6 to 11, the Slow Food Central Poland Culinary Heritage Promotion Community will organize a traveling tasting in which participants explore local Ark of Taste products in the dishes of a number of restaurants as part of the Dobrego Smaku Lodzkie Festival in Lodz.

In Colombia, the only organic market in the city of Cali, which brings together 30 traders representing more than 70 farming families and agro-ecological producers, will become a Slow Food Earth Market. The transition will be officialized on October 17, the 17th anniversary of the birth of the market, with an event organized by producers and consumers allied in the participatory guarantee system, whereby customers take part in markets, visits to farms and periodic controls.

On October 18 Turkey will inaugurate its fourth Earth Market in the old Kubat Pasa Madrasa Koranic school building in Tarsus. During the inauguration, guests will be able to enjoy street food made with the produce of the market’s 60 participating traders.

In Switzerland we begin with a Slow Food Market, part of the Food Zurich event on October 24, where Slow Food network producers, the authors of the Slow Wine guide and Zurich-based members of the Slow Food Cooks’ Alliance, will serve menus made with Presidium and Ark of Taste produce.

Slow Food Austria will organize more than 30 events during the six months of Terra Madre, dedicated to the Ark of Taste, Slow Food Presidia, Earth Markets and Slow Food Travel itineraries.

A number of activities have been organized in Romania by the Slow Food Targu Mures Convivium, among which is a dinner dedicated to the produce of the Armenian community and another combining the country’s Romanian, Hungarian, Saxon, Armenian and Jewish gastronomic traditions. The Convivium will also launch the first Slow Food school garden in Romania at a nursery in Targu Mures.

Many events have been organized in Azerbaijan as part of the Community-based Value Chain Enhancement in the Greater Caucasus Mountains (COVCHEG) project funded by the EU and coordinated by Slow Food: there’ll be Taste Workshops to discover local specialties, “slow” cooking with Ark of Taste ingredients, and the long-awaited launch of the Slow Food Chefs’ Alliance in the country.

Spain’s first Terra Madre event will be Rebato: the first toll for rural areas, a festival organized by, among others, the El Rincón de la Biodiversidad Convivium from October 10 to 12 in Castielfabib: this will be a cross-cutting cultural, social and gastronomic experience to promote unban resilience in the small towns of the Rincón de Ademuz region.

In Chile, the Slow Food Crianza Ecológica Valle del Itata and Extender Fronteras Alimentarias del Bio Bio Communities will celebrate World Food Day on October 16 with an event advocating the importance of food sovereignty and the emendation of the Chilean Constitution, in which participants will work in the fields and farms that feed the town of Conception.

Also on October 16, in Macedonia, the Slow Food Vodno Consortium will organize the first Food Film Festival in Skopje, with the patronage of the local government and the FAO. The festival will focus on local producers, their role in the community, and the institutions’ capacity to support them as custodians of tradition and biodiversity.

Mexico celebrate the biodiversity of corn in the auxiliary district of La Resurreción on October 20 with a conference entitled What Our Earth Gives Us, organized by the Slow Food Academia Puebla Community in collaboration with the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP).

In Kobe, Japan, on November 21 and 22, Slow Food Nippon will organize We Feed The Planet. Through conferences and workshops, this Japanese take on Terra Madre will address the themes of seeds, sustainable fishing, supporting coastal communities and animal welfare on livestock farms.

Slow Food Live is a series of training initiatives and lectures organized on social media in the United States to raise public awareness about food sustainability. It will begin with indigenous communities and the recovery of the gastronomic culture of native American peoples by cooks in the Indigenous Terra Madre network. Other subjects will include social justice, the cooks-producers alliance, and policies to protect aquatic resources.

For more information:

Official Website – Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2020
www.terramadresalonedelgusto.com

Slow Food International Press Office
Paola Nano – (+39) 329 8321285
Gioia Baggio – (+39) 349 9549799
[email protected]

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.