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The newsletter for all members of the Terra Madre
network, defenders of sustainable
agriculture, fishing and breeding
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Projects
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GranOs |
In order to protect small farmers’ seeds from patent claims,
it is necessary to demonstrate that their characteristics
and properties are not the ‘discovery’ of multinational
companies, but the collective heritage of communities.
This is the objective of the GranOs project, an important
initiative of Slow Food’s Terra Madre network, which joins
other programs in promoting an approach to agriculture
that respects the environment, cultural identity and biodiversity.
The project aims to describe and protect the genetic,
morphological, and physiological characteristics of conservation
plant varieties as well as their known food and non-food
uses. Cataloging the vast heritage bequeathed by traditional
farming culture is an essential part of defending biodiversity.
The project’s website, which will host the first online
database next autumn, in time for the Terra Madre meeting,
will describe conservation plant varieties from around
the world, with genetic, anthropological, gastronomic,
pharmacological and cultural information. In addition,
GranOs will provide suggestions on where to find seeds,
people who grow the species described and what they have
obtained from their crops. All the information and the
databank will be available to anyone wanting or needing
it, providing they do not use it for commercial purposes
and do not try to claim property rights.
Details can be found at www.granos.it.
Please help us to create, improve and fund the project.
You can already give information about seeds from your
local area by writing to: centrostudi@slowfood.it
Focus on...
Free seeds!
Seeds are defenders of biodiversity, they represent the
starting point for everything in agriculture. They are
the first link in the food chain and a common inheritance
of all human beings.
This is why there have for some time been demands that
they should not be subject to privatization, patents and
biopiracy.
The open source principle should prevail once and for
all.
The right to freely reproduce seeds, exchange and save
them is being continually threatened.
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The
term biopiracy
succinctly expresses the idea of expropriation
of indigenous knowledge by companies
and research institutes. It refers to
the claims for intellectual property
rights made in order to legitimize the
exclusive ownership and control of biological
resources, products and processes which
have been used for centuries by non-industrialized
cultures. |
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Kokopelli |
Evidence of the seriousness of
the current situation can be seen from the legal defeat
recently suffered by the Kokopelli association, accused
of unfair competition by the seed industry.
In order to safeguard ancient vegetable varieties and
their seeds, Kokopelli. referring to the FAO
Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, had sold seeds which
were judged to be ‘non-compliant’ and was sentenced
to pay stiff fines. French law in fact requires seeds
to be registered in an official register at a cost of
1500 euro ($2174) for each variety before they can be
sold.
The Kokopelli association was founded in France in 1999
to protect the biodiversity of vegetable and flower
seeds, and now has thousands of members. It produces
and distributes organic seeds and defends plant biodiversity.
It also carries out projects in developing countries
and publishes a guide on how to save seeds, and attended
Terra Madre in 2006.
Kokopelli is still based in France but now has national
offices in Italy,
Belgium,
the UK
and Germany.
Its work ensures the conservation of the seeds of 2000
vegetable varieties or species, mostly of ancient origin.
Website of the French association:
http://www.kokopelli.asso.fr/index.html
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Slow Food
key words |
Sustainable food
Although there is no legal
definition of sustainable food, terms such
as ‘organic’ or ‘fair’ are clearly defined. Sustainable
food means food that is produced, processed and distributed
in a way that:
- helps local economies and sustainable means of subsistence
flourish in each single country and — in the case of
imported products — in producer countries; - protects
the diversity of animal and plant species (and the wellbeing
of wild and farmed species), avoiding damage to natural
resources and any contribution to climate change; -
provides social benefits, such as good quality, safe,
healthy food and educational stimuli; - tends to reduce
environmental impact by adopting a systemic approach,
achieving a more balanced production cycle by reusing
waste
Voices from
Terra Madre
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I am a nutritionist and work with farming
communities, particularly groups of women,
young students and colleagues. Attending Terra
Madre in 2006 was a hugely significant experience
for me, and allowed me to meet other Kenyans
interested in finding suppliers of traditional
food products.
I was able to take home recipes from other
cooks I met in Turin and learned commercial
methods used in other countries for similar
products to the ones we have in Kenya.
I now hope to spread Slow Food principles
at home and encourage as many people as possible
to produce, process and consume healthy local
food. |
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Emmy Adisah Otwombe
Kenyan Terra Madre Cook
addisah2004@yahoo.com
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Food Traditions
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From Venezuela... tungos or carabinas |
In some rural areas south-east of Merida, Venezuela, the
tradition of preparing tungos or carabinas still persists.
These corn flour tortillas are wrapped in leaves of bromeliad,
an evergreen native to the dry forests of Brazil and a
member of the Bromeliaceae family, which also includes
the pineapple. The heart-shaped leaves of juquian, a tubercle
similar to yam, are used to add vitamins, color and aroma
to the cooked flour. Once used, the leaves are disposed
of in chicken pens, allotments and domestic gardens where
they are naturally recycled.
Tungos are enriched with curds or seeds such as green
pea, making them a more complete food.
This is one of many corn-based foods from Andean Indian
cultures, which are now part of South American culinary
traditions.
Douglas Uzcátegui
150pizzas@gmail.com
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TELL US ABOUT
YOUR TRADITIONS!
Describe your community,
your regional dishes and the occasions
on which you eat them. We'll post
the best entries in this section:
communication@slowfood.com
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Seeds
The Indian
scientist Vandana Shiva, international vice-president
of Slow Food International, explains the aims
and philosophy of Navdanya, the movement she founded
to promote biodiversity conservation, seed saving
and seed sharing among farmers in her native land.
The Green Revolution reduced agriculture to monocultures
of rice and wheat needing increasing doses of
chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation
water. Farmers’ breeding was replaced by industrial
breeding. Agroecology was replaced by industrial
agriculture. Genetic Engineering, often referred
to as the second Green Revolution, has already
reduced agriculture to corn, soya, canola and
cotton, based on two traits—herbicide resistance
and Bt toxin crops—in the hands of five giant
corporations. Having dedicated my life to the
defense of the intrinsic worth of all species,
the idea of life forms, seeds and biodiversity
being reduced to corporate inventions and hence
corporate property was abhorrent to me. Further,
if seeds become ‘intellectual property’, the saving
and sharing of them becomes a theft. Our highest
duty, to save seeds, is thus a criminal act. But
the legalizing of the criminal act of owning and
monopolizing life through patents on seeds and
plants was morally and ethically unacceptable
to me. Navdanya has created more than 20 community
‘Seed Banks’ through which seeds are saved and
freely exchanged among our 300,000 members. This
free exchange of seeds among small farmers—based
on collaboration and reciprocity—is the basis
for protecting biodiversity and food security
[...]. In saving seeds and biodiversity we are
protecting cultural diversity. Navdanya also means
‘new gift’. We bring to our farmers the new gift
of life in the face of the extinction of species
and extinction of small farmers [...]. Contrary
to the myth of industrial agriculture, biodiverse
systems of agriculture produce more food and higher
incomes than industrial monocultures. Our baranaja
(twelve seeds) systems give twice as much output
and three times higher incomes than a monoculture
of corn.
From Vandana Shiva, Dalla parte degli
ultimi [On Behalf of the Least](Slow Food Editore,
2007)
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Join
a great international community that defends sustainable
agriculture, fishing and breeding.
Celebrate the pleasure that the finest foods in
the world offer us in all their variety
servicecentre
@slowfood.com |
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Your Questions Answered
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I participated in the Terra Madre 2006 meeting where I had the opportunity to learn many interesting things. It was incredible to see such a range of different food, fruit, meat and people from every part of the world!
What is the procedure for attending the next edition of Terra Madre in 2008?
Poonam
Pande
poonam.pande@gmail.com
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The third edition of Terra Madre,
the world meeting of food communities, will be held in Turin
(Piedmont, Italy) from October 23 to 27, 2008
to coincide with the International Salone del Gusto.
The first step if you want to attend the next edition of Terra
Madre is to complete the
online questionnaire, which is available in eight languages.
Terra Madre 2008 will focus on young people. New features
include a folk festival with groups of musicians
from food communities and the Youth Food Movement.
Created at the Fifth International Slow Food Congress (Mexico,
November 2007), the presence of the Youth Food Movement highlights
the importance of new generations for the future of small-scale
farming which can promote local economies, environmental sustainability
and social justice.
The movement, created through the initiative of students from
the University of Gastronomic Sciences and Slow Food USA,
is composed of a group of university students, young producers,
cooks and activists".
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Did
You Know that?
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The wizard of the seeds |
At over 1500 meters in the Himalayas, small farmer and activist
Vijay Jardhari has for years been fighting a battle against
GMOs and high-yield crops.
Jardhari founded the Beej Bachao Andolan movement in response
to the failure of the Green Revolution, which made Indian small
farmers into slaves of monocultures, causing soil degradation,
loss of biodiversity and pollution. After experiencing the negative
effects of this approach, Jardhari began his campaign to save
traditional seeds and promote agricultural biodiversity and
local traditions.
Moving from village to village, in the past 25 years Vijay has
collected 600 different native seed varieties from the area
and has revived the ancient barnaja farming system, now adopted
in all the villages of Uttarakhand (one of India’s 27 states).
The method involves every farmer using twelve seeds with different
life cycles to ensure optimal production without poisoning the
land.
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The
Green Revolution
refers to the new approach to agriculture
introduced around the 1950s. These changes
to traditional agricultural practice originated
in Mexico in 1944 through the efforts of US
scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman
Borlaug, and from the US spread around the
world. This approach advocated using vegetable
varieties with high genetic potential and
the widespread adoption of scientific and
technical know-how (genetically selected plants,
agricultural machinery, fertilizers and pesticides).
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