We recorded Farmerama ‘live’ from Turin, Italy this month where thousands of small-scale farmers, shepherds, fishers, chefs and people committed to more resilient food systems from over 100 hundred countries around the world have come together to celebrate and share food and farming knowledge at the Slow Food Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, it’s like the UN for food systems.
In Turin eco-gastronomer David Szanto from the University of Gastronomic Sciences tells us about feeding all of our senses, fisherman Paul Molyneaux shares storytelling as an alternative to certification and we hear the united voices of farmers from around the globe coming together thanks to the Slow Food Network.
Back home the holistic management framework gives mob-grazer Rob Havard some clear goals at home and in the fields, Will Edwards has a super simple calf-feeding technique for his dairy herd and Alabama-based Locky shares about the Ogunn Tractor an open-source, easily fixable tractor.
If you want to find out more about Holistic Management, RegenAg UK are putting on a weekend introduction to financial and grazing planning 20-22 November, you can find out more here.
The beauty of Terra Madre is saved in the smiles.
We walk differently, dress differently, communicate differently, yet we share soil moisture tips, ways of preparing foods, how to bring the hope back home.
The power lies in knowing, we now see the world with new eyes, we are not alone.
We may return to our villages or cities a single voice, but when we close our eyes we know the thousands of other people alone on hillsides, with small restaurants in distant towns, all caring for the land, bringing tasty, nourishing food to schools and hospitals, feeding 70% of the planet using only 30% of the resources.
We are all part of this web that is woven cross-continents and oceans.
They are giants, but we are millions.
We meet young Scottish crofters keeping cultural traditions alive, hear from a Lebanese farmer and South African harvester using alternative approaches to certification, dip our toes into sustainable seaweed harvesting along the coast of Ireland and bump into Autonomia Project as they wind their way by bike from Paris to Tokyo with a sack full of seeds. Find out about the inspiring projects and people we met on our trip to Slow Food Youth Network‘s We Feed the Planet at the Milan Expo last week.