Markets Creating Communities, Not Just Selling Food

At Salone del Gusto a panel discussion presented Slow Food’s new Earth Markets initiative, explaining how farmers’ markets could do much more than just bringing producers and consumers in direct contact, but could also create an important community space, building a bridge between rural and urban areas and uniting various social groups. Piero Sardo, President of the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, moderated the conference held at 12 pm at Turin’s Lingotto exhibition center. He explained that the “Mercati della Terra,” or Earth Markets, were an international network of farmers’ markets promoted by Slow Food in partnership with the Tuscany Regional Authority and ARSIA, the Tuscan regional agency for the development and innovation of agriculture and forestry. The first markets have already been set up in Italy, Lebanon and Israel, giving producers a place to sell their products at a fair price.The promoter of the first Earth Market, in Montevarchi in Tuscany, Luca Fabbri, described it as a kind of “laboratory” for the project, with the intention being to replicate the model around the world. He emphasized that: “the Earth Markets are not just a tool for selling but also for local development, a social tool where communities can meet.”Next to speak Rami Zurayk, an agriculture professor at the University of Beirut, widened the scope by recounting the experience of setting up three Earth Markets in Lebanon. The markets in Tripoli and Saida are already up and running, while the one in Beirut is scheduled to open next November. “Lebanon imports 70% of its food and government investment in agriculture is less than 1% of the total budget, while 75% of producers are farming less than 3 acres,” he said, outlining some of the problems farmers had in finding a market for their food and receiving a fair remuneration. Zurayk described how in the aftermath of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in July 2006, the country received an aid package from Italy, some of which was used to rebuild livelihoods. This provided the impetus for setting up the Earth Markets in collaboration with the Tuscan-based non-government organization UCODEP. These markets are important economic multipliers, business incubators, he said, and importantly they also provide meeting places and a neutral space in a strife-riven country. “Not just good, clean and fair, but good, clean, fair and peace,” he said. Maria Grazia Mammuccini, ARSIA administrator, then spoke for Tuscany, emphasizing the role of Earth Markets in promoting biodiversity, seasonal foods, sustainability, equity and transparency. Her organization provides training, information and research to help set up short supply chains, and she said she hoped the alliance with Slow Food would assist them to find appropriate solutions for problems such as how to transform such markets from a weekly or monthly frequency to somewhere consumers can do their everyday shopping. The focus then shifted to Piedmont in Italy’s north, with Mino Taricco, the region’s agriculture councilor, talking about the risk of young people in urban centers losing touch with the seasonality of food and where it comes from. Farmers’ markets are one attempt to redress this, as are educational farms. Piedmont, he said, is in the process of setting up a brand which band together local farmers’ markets, giving them a forum for communication and a guarantee of certification. Executive director Richard McCarthy represented the American NGO Market Umbrella. His organization is working to develop methodologies to measure the success of farmers’ markets, which he said: “are a way to raise financial, human and social capital.” He also mentioned that they were thought of as old-fashioned, but that markets must be seen as mechanisms to bridge relationships. “Markets become much more important than food,” he said. “They can be bridges between the urban and rural and between different social classes.” He described a project to target isolated senior citizens in which they are brought to farmers’ markets where they are able to use their food vouchers, and another to put a surcharge on credit cards to create a pool of money that can be used for innovation and investment. Then it was back to Europe with Jim Turnbull, co-founder of the ADEPT foundation and the first Romanian farmers’ market. He talked the audience through the complicated process of setting up the market in Bucharest, following the Earth Market model. He mentioned some of the difficulties – for example they experienced difficulties on stipulating a maximum distance from which to source producers from, as they had trouble finding enough producers in the whole country. But he also cited successes, such as a cheesemaker who in December 2006 was trying to sell his goats because he couldn’t sell his cheeses, but who was now buying more animals because of his success at the market. Concluding the meeting was Franco Pasquali, the Secretary-General of Coldiretti, an organization that represents 64% of all the farmers in Italy. He said that Italy’s hundreds of thousands of piazzas were a specific regional and social characteristic that assists the farmers’ markets to succeed. “This is a constructive dialog with Slow Food on how to build a piece of the future,” he said, “and how to build important new connections between communities.”

Indiana, The heart of American food

As I was getting on the bus this morning to go to a conference of developing sustainable menues at Terra Madre I introduced myself to an individual from North Carolina. As soon as I mentioned I was from Indiana she said, "you guys are at the heart of change in this movement." The past couple of days I have heard over and over again how Indiana needs to step up and lead the change of food in the United States.

On Friday night I had dinner with several culinary instructors from all parts of the United States, all of us teach a class around American Regional Cuisines. I asked the group to tell how they desribed each area we were from when they lecture in the class. I was shocked to hear people from California and a large school in upstate New York talk about the Midwest. I have always thought of us Hoosiers as a people that love our meat and potatoes. While they agreed with that, they said our most important contribution was the food we grow. They explained that we said the standard for what is grown and consumed. After a couple hours of discussion on this, they had convinced me that what we grow and how we grow it does set the trends for the rest of the country...and eventually the world.

87% of all produced consumed in the world today is Corn, Wheat or Rice. Throw our Soybeans in there and we gain another couple of percentage points. We have big agro-business doing research, leterally, in our back yards. We really need to make a stement for biodiversity and ask farmers to grow product that we can eat without having health concerns. Our words go directly to people that can listen and make a change.

It is illegal in the state of Peidmont, where we are for Terra Madre, to use GMO's and harsh chemicals. As we drove through the country side the first night I was noticing how the corn stalks looked like they were melting into the ground. One of the Ag Agents from the US that was on the bus explained to me that a normal healthy soil will digest a corn stalk in a month. That the sugars in the corn stalk will feed that soil through the winter. He went on to talk about how in the US it takes about 2 years for corn stalks to be digested by the soils. Because the soils are depleted of bacteria by the use of pesticides. In a health soil the good bateria eat bad, invading bacteria. An example of this would be that in a healthy soil, Dangerous E.coli are eaten by the good bacteria. But, in a soil that has been stripped of good bacteria by pesticides; the E.coli grows and attaches to the vegitables that are growing. So, we end up with lettuce, peppers, etc, that make us sick.

It is time for us "hoosiers" to stand up and tell our leaders that we want Good, Clean and Fair food. All of us in Indiana are leaders, wheather we know it or not. We need to use our voice with emial, and letters to leaders in governement and business. We need to vote with our dollars at the stores and restaurants. We need to vote for a leadership that is for long term health of its people. Instead of short term growth for business. You are the leaders, lead!

Chef Thom England

Open Eyes to Food

Day 2 at Terre Madre gave delegates time to explore the Salone del Gusto. This is a food show that is adjacent to Terre Madre. This food show is all artisinal foods from many different regions of the world. This is not your ordinary food show. It is in a convention center about the size of 8 city blocks. It is mond boggeling to look into the convention center and see the mixture of cultures all on one room.



I spent the morning with Ragina Mahlick tasting through the items that are in the Presidia. The Presidia is a program in Slow Food that recognizes quality products at risk of extinction, protect unique regions and ecosystems, recovers traditional processing methods, safeguard native breeds and local plant varieties. The Presidia directly involve producers, offering technical assistance to improve production quality, organize exchanges among different countries, provides new market outlets (both locally and internationally). With more than 320 International Presidia, Slow Food protects biodiversity in the whole world: from Rimbas Black Pepper in Malaysia, to Mananara Vanilla in Madagascar. I was struck at the limited amounts of food that we actually eat on a regular basis. Chef Mahlick and I had long talks about how we could start incorporating more diverse products on our foods. To the depth of ordering and using specific types of corn.



In the afternoon and late evening I was able to taste many more of the rest of the items in Salone del Gusto. I think I tasted 30 different forms of cured hams on the level of procuitto. Learning many of the nuances of flavor that can be developed by the breed of the animal and how it is raised. I must have tried a hundred cheeses, learning the delicate balance of cheesemaking. I tried many artisinal chocolate and listed as chocolate makers would describe where the tree was grown, what was growing next to it and why all of that matters. And it tried hundreds of other products, learning in each step about the significants of how things are grown or raised in each step. I realize now how we as Americans are blind to all of these things. We buy our fruits, vegetables and meats in a supermarket blind to any nuance that was greated by the grower. We really do not even know what the breed or species of the products that we buy.



This day opened my eyes of how significant our farmers markets are. How important it is that we cultivate a climate with these markets and CSA that openly talk about where the produce and meats are coming from and how they are grown. And, I think it is imparative that people have the ability to meet the grower and have opportunities to see the farms.



Chef Thom England

Terra Madre opening ceremony

Thursday evening saw the opening of the 3rd Terra Madre conference in Turin Italy. Indianapolis has 14 delegates in attendance this year. The delegates are representing producers, chefs, students and academics. There are over 7,000 participants and observers from 1,652 food communities of 153 different nationalities in total. 720 delegates are from the United States.

The evening started off with a flow of sponsors giving speaches...but, this is not your normal line of of corporate sponsors. The 7200 delegates are all here as guests of the region. All lodging and meals are paid for by Italian Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry; the Piedmont Regional Authority; City of Turin; and Slow Food International. It was obvious that the Italian government feels that the world is in a global food crisis and that they want to be a part of the solution.

Then came a message from Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations. “Finding long-term solutions to the world food crisis is one of the priorities of the United Nations. I welcome initiatives such as yours which contribute to building new partnerships and focus public opinion on small-scale farming.” Read by Carlos Lopes, director of the United Nations.

Alice Waters, led to the stage by the moderator is a round of applause, spoke briefly about the US. She delivered a strong message that we need to join a political fight to assure a better food community; instead of just watching as big business destroys our society. We need to develop a statement by encouraging our capitals to build gardens on the lawns as SanFrancisco did for Slow Food Nation. That we need to be part of a global solution.

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, spoke about his views on organic agriculture, biofuels and genetically modified foods. Prince Charles emphasized that the solution to these problems and the current global food shortages “rests largely with the truly sustainable farmer.” Referring to a UN report which argues that tradition and local knowledge form an extensive sphere of knowledge important for reaching sustainability, he said: “All this may, of course, seem far removed from the everyday concerns of small-scale food producers, farmers, cooks and academics, but it is crucial for your voices to be heard in these global debates.”I am enormously encouraged that so many people are today recognizing the benefits of working with nature and harnessing positive forces through healthy soil, healthy crops and healthy animals in order to provide healthy food,” the prince continued.“I can only conclude by expressing nothing but my greatest admiration for all you stand for. You are the guarantors of our long-term food security, based upon your dedicated care of the natural environment,” he concluded.

The highlight of the opening was hearing Vandana Shiva, Slow Food International Vice-President and founder of Navdanya. She is a very impasioned speaker of Good, Clean and Fair food. Vandana is the person that was the highlight of Slow Food Nation as well. Without a doubt people should read and watch more about Vandana and find out more about the research Navdaya is doing in Canada. The thing that hit home for me the most is how US food aid to countries is killing farmers in developing countries.

Other speakers included Tewolde Berhan Gebre-Egziabher, Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency of Ethiopia and UN “Champion of the Earth”; Humberto Oliveira, Secretary of Regional Development of the Ministry for Rural Development of Brazil; and Sam Levin, student at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Massachusetts, USA.

Sam stole the show. This sophmore in high school was added to the end of the program as a representative of the youth movement, a focus of this years Terra Madre. He talked about his journey over the past year. As a freshman in high school he went to the principle and asked if he could develop an edible schoolyard. Through the fall and early winter he made his arguements to school boards, all who were negative to the idea at first. But, he showed his persistence and was allowed to start the program. In 1 year the garden project has been a resounding success with elementary classes learning in the garden and healthy food being used in the caffeterias of the schools. Carlo Patrini, Vanadana Sheeva and Sam Levin were the 3 people that walked off of the stage with standing ovations. Sam is a 16 year old man that led 10,000 people through a journey with his speach. We will see more of him in the future.

Chef Thom England

local Terra Madre blog posts

Thom England of Ivy Tech will be making some guest posts next week here at the Slow Food Indy blog during his time at Terra Madre in Torino, Italy. For updates from a student's perspective, check out Ivy Tech student and Terra Madre participant Amanda Taylor's blog.

Get on the bus! Slow Food Indy Farm Bus Tour

Sunday, October 26

10:00am Arrive at Apple Family Farm

Tour the Apple Family Farm, enjoy a picnic lunch and pick your own apples and pumpkins at Anderson Orchard, visit the extensive winter vegetable greenhouses at Yeager Farm, and check out the vines and barrels before sampling some bottles at Buck Creek Winery.

4:45pm Return to the Apple Family Farm

Reservations required and available online!

$15 for Slow Food USA members; $20 for non-members

* Participants are only responsible for their own transportation to and from the Apple Family Farm 3365 W State Rd 234, McCordsville, IN 46055

Brought to you by Indy Sustainable Food Alliance, Politics of Food Book Discussion Group, and Slow Food Indy

Slow Food Indy Farm Bus Tour Stops:

Apple Family Farm
The Apple Family Farm is operated by Mark, Debbie, Brayden and Rhayna Apple, the third and fourth generations to farm this plot in McCordsville, Indiana. Holding to their belief that the future of farming must include a resurgence of the small family farm, the Apples employ an all-natural approach to raising the rare breeds of chickens, sheep, and beef and dairy cows that roam their pastures. “Our goal is to provide the healthiest food for our neighbors while contributing to the health of our community and protecting the health of our environment,” Debbie says. And their products taste good, too!

Anderson Orchard
Bud and Gloria Hopkins grow over eighteen varieties of apples at Anderson Orchard, a plot of land that’s been nourishing fruit trees since the 1930s. Customers can pick their own apples or buy them fresh, preserved, buttered, slushed, or carameled inside the orchard shop. Stop by in the fall to pick your own pumpkins, take a turn in the Corn Maze, and taste the sweet bread and rolls, all fresh-baked on the property.

Yeager Farm Produce
The good folks at Yeager Farms Produce specialize in Asian and Indian vegetables during the summer season and an array of lettuces, spinach, stir fry greens, cooking greens, and root crops during the fall and winter. But no matter the weather, all their produce is chemical free and grown using sustainable farming practices like the extensive set of greenhouses they constructed for year-round harvesting. Check out the farm’s Web site for a sneak preview and delicious recipes for some of their unusual produce.

Buck Creek Winery
Buck Creek Winery is one of Indiana's newest wineries, planting twelve varieties of vines. At their start, Jeff and Kelly Durm sold grapes to other wineries and members of Korean and Amish churches who came to pick the fruit for wine and jelly. After opening the winery in April 2006, their bottles were quick to earn awards. Buck Creek Winery took home 15 medals from the 2008 International Wine Competition.

Harvest 2008 benefits Second Helpings

Taste over 300 wines from around the world. Huge silent auction. Sample Signature dishes from some of Indy's top chefs and restaurants including:

• D'Vine, A Wine Bar
• Dunaway's
• Fleming's Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar
• Ivy Tech Community College
• Just 'Cause Catering
• Oceanaire Seafood Room
• R Bistro
• Scholar's Inn
• Taste Café and Marketplace
• The Melting Pot
• Second Helpings
• Art Institute of Indianapolis
• Buggs Temple

All proceeds benefit Second Helpings' programs to eliminate hunger and empower people in Greater Indianapolis.

7 p.m. - 10 p.m., Friday, Oct 10, Ritz Charles, 12156 N. Merdian Street, Tickets

Purchase your tickets online: $75 Advance purchase ($100 at the door); $30 Designated driver tickets; $25 After party featuring desserts, dessert wines, and ports

Must be 21 to enter.