Funded Projects
During the year, Slow Food works to acquire funds from public and private institutions (international organizations, foundations, multilateral donors) for the implementation of projects that contribute to strengthening the network and achieving the strategic objectives of the movement at the global level.
The activities are divided into three main areas, which are linked to each other:
- identification of possible calls for proposals,
- planning of the activities to be carried out and presentation of proposals
- management of the funds acquired.
Below you will find the funded projects that Slow Food is actively working on.
Institutions and Foundations
Operating Grant
NGO Operating grants for 2011 – 2012 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015 – 2016 – 2017 -2018 – 2019 – 2020 – 2021 under the Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (LIFE)
The Operating grant is a co-financing instrument that covers the costs that European environmental NGOs, such as Slow Food, have to bear in carrying out the activities provided for in their annual work programme in relation to EU countries.
SANAPI: water, land and forest, the weave of biodiversity and protection of the work of bees.
End Date: 2025
Donors: Italian Agency for Development Cooperation.
The project SANAPI is implemented in Bolivia (Chuquisaca abd Cochabamba) by ASPEm, CeVI, Slow Food, Agua sustentable, Fundación Pasos, Fundación Abrilhas, the University of Milano, and funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. The action aims at strengthening environmental management initiatives and production systems that promote forest protection. The vast majority of anthropic impacts on forests and protected areas, occur because the inhabitants need to generate income. Due to high levelsof poverty, they are forced to choose between their subsistence and natural resources conservation. The project considers that this trade-off must be overcome and environmental protection actions must go hand in hand with the promotion of activities that allow economic development without affecting the environment. The intervention will reduce the pressure of the population on natural resources, and it will encourage forest protection by promoting sustainable sources of income.
Enhancing Indigenous Youth and Women Capacities to Protect and Promote Their Communities’ Food Heritage
End Date: 2025
Donor: International Fund for Agricultural Development
The project will be implemented for a period of 3 years in 3 target countries (Philippines, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan) by Slow Food and its Indigenous Peoples network. With the aim of promoting the centrality of the agroecological food systems and the invaluable knowledge of indigenous peoples, the action consists of 3 components: the first component wants to improve the value of local food heritage products through the Slow Food Presidia model, which is proved to be very successful through the deep engagement and commitment of indigenous peoples, especially women and youth. Moreover, the implementation of the Slow Food Participatory Guarantee System (PGS), tested through the previous IFAD-Slow Food grant, will further contribute to positive economic results and sustainability of the Presidia. Under the second component, the leadership skills of youth leaders will be strengthened through capacity building activities, trainings, peer-to peer exchanges and regional events. The last component will share knowledge and solutions about agroecology and food heritage as means to improve marginalized rural communities’ livelihoods. The participation into international events and conferences (such as Terra Madre), will allow the indigenous leaders to advocate for agroecology as the way forward to protect biodiversity, and ensure social justice.
SUSTavianFEED – Alternative animal feeds in Mediterranean poultry breeds to obtain sustainable products.
End Date: March 2025
Donor: PRIMA Programme supported by the European Union
Partners: ALIA – Sociedad Agraria de Transformacion (Spain) – UMU – University of Murcia (Spain) – UNITO – University of Turin (Italy) – ISA-CM – Institut Superieur Agronomique de Chott Mariem (Tunisia) – Rayhana Ngo (Tunisia) – Entomo Consulting S.L. (Spain) – EGE University (Turkey) – Fondazione Slow Food per la Biodiversità Onlus (Italy)
SUSTAvianFEED aims to demonstrate the efficacy of innovative poultry farming systems and the social effects in rural Mediterranean areas, with a specific focus on gender equality.
FoodTrails
End Date: 15/10/2024
Donor: UE H2020
Partners Italia, Belgium, Norway, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, France, Portugal, Greece, Albania, Poland
FOODTRAILS, a four-year project led by the City of Milan, brings together a Consortium of 19 partners (including 11 EU cities, 3 universities and 5 prominent food system stakeholders), which will be followed by another 21 worldwide cities, to translate the Mlan Urban Food Policy Pact shared vision and collective commitment to integrated urban food policies into measurable and long-term progress towards sustainable food systems. Building on the momentum created by the recent emergence of cities as key sites to reimagine, enact and engage with food system transformation.
Strengthening the capacities and networking of guardians of diversity in Mexico
End Date: 2024
Donor: W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Implemented by the Slow Food Indigenous Peoples Network, the project aims to protect and promote the food heritage of indigenous communities by strengthening the capacities of women and youth as defense means of their communities. This will be achieved through trainings in which the Food Systems Guardians will improve their knowledge on food sovereignty, leadership, indigenous peoples’ rights and project design. In addition, funding will be provided for community projects designed by the youth and their communities. Furthermore, this network will initiate awareness raising and advocacy processes to achieve food sovereignty in their communities. It should be noted that the project will have a sub-component to continue the enhancement of associative and marketing processes initiated in the past with the indigenous communities belonging to the Slow Food Presidium of the Milpa System in Chiapas.
PPILOW – Poultry and Pig Low-input and Organic production systems’ Welfare
End Date: August 2024
Donor: European Union – DG Research
The project aims to work on animal welfare and to co-construct, through a multi-actor approach, solutions to improve the welfare of poultry and pigs reared in organic and low-input outdoor production systems.
Youth & Food – food as a vehicle for inclusion
End date: 2024
Partners: Al Kharub cooperativa sociale, Associazione Multietnica dei mediatori interculturali, C.P.I.A. Agrigento, Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale CeSPI, Comune di Torino, Coop.Meeting Service Catering, Sanitaria Delfino Società Cooperativa Sociale, Servizio VIII – Centro per l’Impiego di Agrigento.
The project aims to promote the inclusive growth of 60 young migrants, aged between 17 and 21 years, in Piedmont and Sicily through the activation of paths to promote food as a vehicle for integration, economic growth, employment and social development. On the one hand, the aim is to create favorable conditions for social and work integration through the activation of training courses in companies and the financing of 3 entrepreneurial projects; specific training for gastronomic mediators will create further opportunities for integration. On the other hand, work will be done to strengthen the critical understanding of the migration process and will favor the creation of social networks, activating their own networks and involving the citizenship in gastronomic events and culinary workshops; the process will be favored by participating in the debate on the subject with the organization of conferences and the creation of tools for awareness raising .
EU Food Policy CoalitionEnd Date: 31/12/2023
Donor: Porticus
Slow Food is part of the EU Food Policy Coalition, as well as member of the Coalition Board and hosting organisation of the Coalition Secretariat since its inception, in 2019. Participants in the EU Food Policy Coalition work towards policy integration and alignment at the EU-level to facilitate the transition to sustainable food systems. The Coalition provides the debating space to discuss policies and, sometimes, carry out joint activities. Porticus is supporting the work of the Coalition in 2022 and 2023.
NIYAT
End date: 2023
Donor:European Union
Partners: Fundación Gran Chaco in coordination with the Rural Communities Network (RCR), the Rural Women’s Cooperative (COMAR), the gender area of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (Flacso) and Slow Food
The name “Niyat” refers to the Wichí name of the traditional leader who represents a guide and bases his leadership on the knowledge and ability to guide the group in the face of the risks and difficulties they must face.
The Niyat project aims to strengthen women in order to generate a new indigenous governance for the co-design of public policies based on rights in the rural areas of the Gran Chaco of Argentina. The objective is to promote indigenous leadership by promoting a process of inter-institutional articulation to consolidate the communities as a local subject protagonist of the interventions in their territory, in dialogue with the State.
Foster community-led initiatives in East Africa by enhancing agroecological productions and market access in response to the global crisis
End Date: 30 March 2023
Donor: Agroecology Fund
Partners: Slow food Uganda, Slow Food Convivia Association of Kenya, Women Development for Science and Technology (WODSTA), Programme Intégré pour le Développement du Peuple Pygmée (PIDP)
While the previous project, funded by AEF, focused on strengthening farmers’ agroecological knowledge (Food Academies) and applying these agroecological theories in the field (Food Gardens), this new collaborative aims to enhance market opportunities (Earth Markets and Cooks Alliance), strengthening food value chains (Presidia) and raise awareness of the importance of choosing these cultural agroecological healthy foods.
The project strategy relies on the Slow Food methodologies: Presidia, Earth Markets and the Cooks Alliance whose reference framework is agroecology, whilst allowing for the adaption to the individual needs of each farming community, with the intention to improve their livelihoods. The collaborative will concentrate on practice by supporting farmers in promoting their agroecological products at markets and sensitizing consumers on the benefits of these products. Subsequently, we will continue to work on advocacy locally and globally for long-term change. Slow Food international will lead the collaborative as an umbrella organization, ensuring coordination, sound knowledge-sharing practices and advancing the role of its African partners on the global stage. Slow Food Kenya and Slow Food Uganda will strengthen their mentoring action towards WODSTA and PIDP respectively. The targeted countries are: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and DRC.
MEDSNAIL: Sustainable Networks for Agro-food Innovation Leading in the Mediterranean
End Date: August 2022
Donor: European Union – ENI CBC MED Programme
MedSNAIL intends to tackle these issues by fostering the valorisation and development of small-scale traditional agro-food value chains, combining enhancement of market potentialities and socio-environmental sustainability. Project activities will build on the well-established experience, principles and methods of Slow Food, an international grassroots organization promoting traditional food with a strong focus on biodiversity preservation.
Slow Food Corporate Supporters
De Longhi
Thanks to this collaboration, De’Longhi contributes to organizing Slow Food-curated events and seminars that amplify the Slow Food Coffee Coalition project, providing visibility and voices to the different roles in the coffee supply chain–first and foremost to the farmers. The change towards good, clean, and fair coffee is a shared responsibility for De’Longhi, its suppliers and customers, and anyone who loves the beverage.
Lavazza
Slow Food Coffee Coalition is founded by Slow Food and Lavazza Group. The Slow Food Coffee Coalition is an international network that unites players in the coffee supply chain, from farmers to consumers, working together toward a common goal: good, clean and fair coffee for all. In the concept of the Coalition there is value creation along the supply chain. A challenging and innovative model in which all stakeholders in the coffee world are called to take part. An open working group, the importance of which is increasingly evident in a supply chain as composite as that of coffee. Increasingly clear, therefore, is the need to build alliances in the pre-competitive arena to develop knowledge, planning and concrete actions
Relais&Chateaux
Relais & Châteaux, the global association of 580 independently owned hotels and restaurants, is promoting the Slow Food philosophy among its members and their wider communities, in support of Slow Food. Through different thematic campaigns, all related to the theme of Food for Change and to actions in defence of the climate, Relais & Châteaux and Slow Food hope to inspire people around the world to be more mindful about our food system.
Slow Food Negroni Week
Slow Food has been chosen as the official giving partner of the Negroni Week, the initiative organized by Negroni, Imbibe and Campari to promote the power of food, beverages, and hospitality.
The Slow Food Negroni Week Fund will give direct support (through incubator grants) to global activities and in particular those projects that support and promote quality food and beverage in every corner of the planet, helping on the one hand the world of production that preserves cultural and biological diversity, and on the other hand consumer education and knowledge exchange. In addition, the Slow Food Negroni Week Funds also seeks to support the development of new initiatives proposed by entities operating in the hospitality sector.
The Slow Food Negroni Week Fund wants to support community-led projects which are leading the transformation of the global food system through preserving cultural and biological diversity, promoting food and beverage education and knowledge exchange, and raising awareness on critical food and beverage issues.
Memorandum of Understanding
Mediterranean Network of Forests Model
The Model Forest concept is based on an innovative approach that combines the social, cultural and economic needs of local communities with the long-term sustainability of forest landscapes. The International Model Forest Network (IFMN) is a voluntary association of partners (public forest services, civil society organizations and others) from around the world working towards a common goal, which is the sustainable management and use of forests and forest landscapes. The concept of Forest Model is largely part of the work program of the FAO Forestry Department, considering also the objectives of the “Legally non-binding instrument on all types of forests” that emerged from the United Nations Forum on Forests and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on October 22, 2007. The partners of the RMFM agree on a common analysis of strategic problems and a shared vision of the future. They agree on the objective of establishing a network of territories that share the common goal of developing the concept of Model Forests in the Mediterranean environment, which will be part of the International Network of Model Forests. The objective of the Network is therefore to test the concept of Model Forests, and its application principles, in the Mediterranean area.