Being at Terra Madre 2008

Terra Madre (http://terramadre2008.org) is a project conceived by Slow Food (http://www.slowfood.com), the philosophy of which evolved over the the organization’s history and crystallized at its realization that “eating is an agricultural act and producing is a gastronomic act.” Slow Food had always stood for the pleasures of the table, for the importance of good-tasting food, and for the defense of cultures facing growing homogenization as a result of today’s so-called modern rationales regarding production, distribution, and economies of scale. It was where these “rationales” were leading that brought Slow Food to realize the need to protect and support small producers, and to change the systems that put them in danger by bringing together those players with decision-making power: consumers, educational institutions, chefs and cooks, agricultural research entities, NGOs, etc. It became clear that it is only through repeated, cumulative, local action, following a guiding global vision, that a significant impact can be achieved.

8000 people from all over the world who loves and cares about food! It was a true trans-local gathering with its breathtaking diversity. I have never been to such a big and diverse party! many times I found myself in tears with the overwhelming beauty and power of this diverse community. As it was my first time at terra madre - hopefully not the last - I spent most of my time to try to understand what was going on and find my way. There were too many things going on at the same time: Workshops, regional meetings, Presidia exhibition(The Presidia program is coordinated by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, which organizes and funds projects that defend our world’s heritage of agricultural biodiversity and gastronomic traditions) , Salone Del Gusto - a big market place for food from all over the world. Despite the richness of the gathering though, learning spaces were not satisfying I found. All workshops were hosted in a huge hall only divided by thin eco walls (produced from straw) so all had to be spoken into headphones through microphones. There were only power point presentations and speeches but not real dialogue at these workshops which covered a wide range of issues from agroecology to youth food movement, from biofuels to educational food projects. I got thoroughly frustrated by the presentation set up and really craved for dialogue. Interesting enough the only moments where I got to talk to people were toilette and food queues. Rest of the time people were rushing around with hardly breathing time.

a few things to notice from terra madre were:
- Carlo Petrini, the founder of slow food, defined the slow food movement as a chaotic (I think he meant chaordic) and diverse movement with no particular order or hierarchy.
- My friend Thedisho from Greenhouse project (South Africa) was one of the speakers at the African regional meeting and he talked about his experience of engaging young people with organic farming. He later told me that he mith energy. (Actually youth food movement and indegenous people's circles were the two places I experienced dialogue.) Most young ade a lot contacts from all over the world after his speech. He was going to spend his last day in Italy with his host family working in their garden. :)

- Slow Food launched its Youth Food Movement (YFM) during Terra Madre. This was one thing I closely followed and made contacts for. There were about 1500 young people present at Terra Madre - farmers, cooks, students who are engaged in food cultivation at their schools or in their communities. These young people were buzzing wpeople were from North America, mainly US. I connected with YFM coordinator and expressed my interest in bringing the invitation of YFM to the young people in Turkey. My intention is to start working with university students in 2009 to engage them with food production, community gardens, permaculture, school gardens as well as connecting them with YFM. http://youthfoodmovement.org/
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- At the closing ceremony, Italian minister of foreign affairs made a speech through a video film (which got booed after the 10th minute of his political speech of course) at the end of which he announced that terra madre community was invited to join a G8 meeting. This was the surprise of the event. So imagine a Vandana Shiva talking to world leaders about food, seeds and biodiversity. wow!

If you are passionate about food, if you are working with food related issues, terra madre is heaven on Earth for you. I feel committed to participating again but only after I will get in touch with the organizers about creating more dialogue spaces in the next gathering. There was such a huge potential untapped this time!