Slow Food Russian River | International Congress Puebla 2007

Slow Food is good, clean and fair food

The 5th International Slow Food Congress

Carlo Petrini's opening speech | Uniting Youth | New SF Int'l Vice Presidents nominated

This is the movement's most important event this year as it is at the Congress that the executive body is elected and future strategies are decided upon.

The 5th International Congress took place from the 8th to the 11th of November 2007 in Puebla, Mexico, convening 600 people from more than 130 countries.

The 5th Int'l Slow Food Congress Begins Today in Puebla, Mexico
09 Nov 07 - Sloweb
The Fifth International Slow Food Congress commences today in Puebla, Mexico and concludes Sunday, November 11. The meeting brings together more than 600 delegates and observers from 49 nations, representing the association’s 85,000 members across five continents.
This is the first time Slow Food has held a congress outside of Europe. Mexico was a strategic choice that represents, both symbolically and practically, the launch of the international network which has developed as a result of Terra Madre – the world meeting of food producers, held every two years in Turin, concurrently with Salone del Gusto.
An important prologue to the Congress was held Thursday, a seminar entitled “Defense of our Cultural Legacy and Nourishment of People.” The seminar was organized by Puebla’s Latin American University, in collaboration with Slow Food and ‘Alternativas’, an organization that has worked for two decades on rural development towards sustainable and traditional agricultural – encouraging the cultivation of foods particular to indigenous Mexican culture, among them amaranth, a Slow Food Presidia.

Nicola Perullo, a representative of the University of Gastronomic Science in Polenzo and Colorno, was the first speaker. Other notable participants included Mexican anthropologist Luis Alberto Vargas Guadarrama, Raul Hernandez Garciadiego, Director of Alternativas, with a report on the preservation of Mexico’s genetic resources and Ana de Ita Rubio, Director of the Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano (Ceccam), who discussed world food resources.

Carlo Petrini, Slow Food International President, discussed the new frontier of eco-gastronomy – concerned with environmental protection and the creation of a network of food communities and local economies that come together to form a virtuous form of globalization. Petrini urged young students to pay attention to and respect the knowledge of traditional farmers, and to listen to the stories and history of local people to cultivate the cultural legacy that is an integral part of their identity. It is through gastronomy, he argued, that we can fight for the future of all of humanity – a future that encourages environmental protection, social justice and a new food culture for all nations.

Slow Food delegates will discuss these themes in more details over the three days of the Congress, developing new strategies and project goals of the association.

The president of the Municipalidad Henrique Doges has also presented Carlo Petrini with the Cedula Real, in the Puebla City Hall. This is the highest honor of Heroica Puebla de Zaragoza –Puebla’s traditional name – awarded to celebrated citizens or to individuals who made a significant contribution to raising Puebla’s profile around the world.

Carlo Petrini opens the Fifth International Slow Food Congress
10 Nov 07 - Sloweb
The importance of re-uniting ourselves with traditional knowledge and maintaining the development of local economies is essential to a sustainable food system and to our future, asserted Carlo Petrini, founder and President of the international Slow Food association, in his opening address at the Fifth Slow Food International Congress today.

Petrini began by stressing the environmental and social damage that has been brought about by dominant modes of food production and our concept of productivity. Modern farming methods seriously threaten our environment and landscape and are responsible for extreme disruption to ecosystems, with invasive species and monocultures devastating biodiversity, and are leading us to a disaster that will be irreversible.

“We must remember that this is a crisis of the concept of development – of linear development, in which productivity and the global market are priority.” Petrini stated. “We are in a critical situation. We must return to a traditional concept of humanity.”

Petrini proposed that our alternative is to find a contemporary solution that draws on traditional knowledge and local economies. This does not signify only assisting indigenous populations to maintain local scales of economy, but to maintain and develop local economies throughout the world. This is a cultural approach, as there is no local economy without local culture, and is concerned with protecting the local environment and rural landscape, and maintaining food cultivation and processing in accord with traditional knowledge and regional heritage and values.

Traditional knowledge plays an essential role: it has allowed the endurance of biodiversity and the survival of populations for centuries. It is necessary that we seek out and protect the traditions and knowledge that lie in the hands of farmers. “If you think hard about it, the lack of self-esteem we give to farmers is part of the environmental disaster we face.” Petrini stated. “For example, when Mexicans leave their homeland, to go and work as exploited farmers in California, they take their knowledge with them and Mexico loses the intellectual knowledge of its land.”

In addition to renewing our respect for traditional knowledge and its bearers, Petrini stated the importance of questioning how we can ensure the return of young people to the land, thus allowing the passing on of this knowledge. Today’s dominant societal values mean younger generations no longer want to be involved in farming. It is essential that Slow Food works to encourage and assist young people to return to the land and in fact, “nothing matters as much, otherwise we don’t have a future,” Petrini emphasized.

The Slow Food global network of food communities, involving farmers and producers, chefs and cooks, educators and scholars, and will make a concerted effort to involve more young people and students in the future. Saturday’s Congress proceedings will include a presentation from students regarding how to work more inclusively with young people. They will also propose a new Slow Food project that would establish a program to allow young students and farmers to travel and experience other agricultural systems, cultures and economies.

Prior to Petrini’s opening speech, a round table discussion was held to explore the complex and diverse issues that Slow Food has become increasingly committed to in recent years. Speakers included Maya Yani from the Indian development agency Navdanya and Mexican anthropologist Luis Vargas.

This Fifth Slow Food International Congress is the first to be held outside of Europe, representative of the development and growth of Slow Food membership, local chapters and projects across the world – with local chapters of Slow Food forming in many new countries. This international Slow Food network of food communities’ was born out of the two Terra Madre meetings, held in 2004 and 2006 in Italy, which initiated a worldwide network of food producers, chefs and academics.

The convening of 600 delegates, representing more than 85,000 members and 49 nations, marks a momentous transition for the organization, endorsing this new relationship between producers and consumers, cooks, educators and students in the name of eco-gastronomyFor Spanish Version click here and truly sustainable economies. The Congress in Puebla will build a new structure to support these challenges, approving new resolutions to guide future strategies and projects.

A new project to unite youth in the name of good, clean and fair food
10 Nov 07 - Sloweb
Some of the most exciting and innovative work in the food movement today is being done by people under the age of twenty-five. University students are changing the food served in their cafeterias, and growing food on their campus greens and local communities.
In order to highlight the work being accomplished by youth around the country, and to inspire international Slow Food leaders to bring these models for youth engagement back to their home countries, a group of students from the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Italy along with the Youth Food Movement delegation of Slow Food USA, presented a proposal to form an international student network at the Fifth International Slow Food Congress.

The University of Gastronomic Sciences, which is in its forth year since being founded in 2003, now hosts 28 nationalities within its student body of roughly 250 students. The University, represented by 13 of those nationalities at the congress, expressed that their experiences traveling and studying together have allowed them to gain unique insight into their own cultural differences and the fundamental issues that unite them.

The Slow Food USA Youth Food Movement delegation, which comprised of an energetic group of youth leaders and activist, presented the success of the Slow Food on Campus Program based within university campuses and some of the interesting projects that have benefited positively in changing the food systems within their local and national community.
The two groups united to join forces in forming a global network with their fellow students around the globe– to promote and academic discourse and share resources and experiences – in an effort to promote food production and consumption that is good, clean, and fair. These three criteria, they explain, are important for the social and environmental justice for all food systems.

Building on the enthusiam of the two groups, the students outlined some of their key goals for making this project a reality.

Encourage Slow Food convivia to involve youth in their activities and increase youth membership
Develop university-based convivia around the world.

Invest in young farmers: particularly in opportunities for exchange and education involving the University of Gastronomic Sciences, other universities and young farmers and to develop active working relationship with Terra Madre communities.

Integrate students and young people into various levels of Slow Food leadership, with the aim of having a youth representative in each national board.

Create new methods of communication and engagement centered around the international youth food movement.

India, Kenya and the United States
represented in the Slow Food International Presidency
12 Nov 07 - Sloweb
The Fifth International Slow Food Congress closed today with powerful words from its founder and leader Carlo Petrini who announced two major pieces of news concerning the association, founded in 1986, and Terra Madre, the third edition of which will be held in 2008.

“One can’t always become sentimental when hearing youth speak out, demand equal rights for women or assert that farmers are at the heart of our association, and then not follow this declaration through with action”, declared Petrini. “It is also just that our leadership passes into new hands, individuals who represent the future evolution of Slow food and who will bring new lifeblood to the association.”

Petrini nominated three new Vice Presidents at the end of his closing address to the Congress. Alice Waters from Slow Food USA was reinstated and joined by Indian activist and scientist Vandana Shiva and Kenyan student John Kariuki Mwang*i. The twenty year old student of the University of Gastronomic Sciences received great applause from the audience of 500 delegates.

“The next four years will be fantastic, enjoyable, interesting and full of new projects developing out of this evolution of Slow Food and its recent growth in areas such as South America, Africa and Asia,” Petrini declared. “Also here in Mexico, leadership must be passed into the hands of the people who we speak about so often, without always giving them the opportunity to make decisions. We must also ensure we develop an approach which is not Eurocentric,” continued the President, who then nominated Alma Rosa Garces from the Villahermosa food community in Tabasco as the new coordinator of the Mexican association.

The second significant news brought by Petrini concerns Terra Madre, the world meeting of food communities that is held in Torino every other year. “Our first edition of Terra Madre brought together farmers from all around the world. The second edition expanded this network by including cooks and university researchers and our next edition in 2008 will diversify further to become the biggest folk festival ever organized with musicians from food communities.” Petrini also announced that “a meeting of young people, universities and farmers from all around the world will be held concurrently with Terra Madre”.

*an image of John Kariuki Mwang was not readily available