“The foundations are good; at the G8 in July discussions about agricultural issues must take into account the rights of those absent. The conclusive document produced by the G8 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting contains positive foundations for the next summit at La Maddalena in Sardinia,” said Roberto Burdese, President of Slow Food Italy. “There are elements that appear for the first time in the official documents of this meeting, for example the important recognition of the centrality of agricultural issues within the international agenda, the concept of sustainability and of food security. We believe that we can hope, even if expectations must necessarily be cautious. We will see what kind of resonation these themes will have in practice during the G8 meeting in July in Sardinia.”
“Up until now the G8 has limited itself to declarations of principles and good will towards countries in which the problem of hunger represents a dramatic daily reality. Too often a defense of the Western matrix’s intensive and industrial agricultural systems has dominated. But the rights of farmers in richer or poorer countries are not in conflict, in fact they can find effective solutions only if they are examined from a global perspective, abandoning the logic of hyper-productivity, starting from a local level. Above all the rights of those not present, those who do not have a place at the table of the powerful, must also be considered.”