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REGIONAL MEETINGS
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Thousands of delegates met in more than 28 regional and national meetings during the first working day of the Terra Madre world meeting of food communities. These gatherings provide an opportunity for producers, cooks, academics and youth to come together to discuss their developments towards a food system which is good, clean and fair, before they begin the sector and issue based Earth Workshops tomorrow.
At the meeting between Russian-speaking Eastern European countries, food communities recounted the educational projects and other activities which they have developed over the past two years. The delegates also emphasized their desire to unify the regional Terra Madre network further, possibly through establishing a coordination committee and undertaking more collaborative action.
A similar proposal came forward during the meeting of African food communities, who will soon discuss the formation of a continent-wide coordination group to increase their communication and sharing of projects and knowledge. Speakers from Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast and Kenya discussed the impact of GMOs and biofuels on their communities and also highlighted the dangers of a Green Revolution for small-scale, traditional agriculture and food production.
The sixty young Africans who participated in the meeting of more than 600 hundred delegates, and will come together again this Sunday before joining more than 1000 young farmers, cooks, students and activists at the Terra Madre youth network meeting.
The rapidly developing Youth Food Movement was a key focus at the Canadian meeting, with presentations from a number of young delegates about their projects across the nation. In addition, the importance of transforming school catering was highlighted. One example came from Paul Finklestein, Terra Madre cook and culinary teacher, who has developed a project in which high-school students cook for their peers in an alternative on-site canteen using food grown on campus.
The Canadian delegation also discussed how to adapt and encourage Slow Food principles within the context of their large land mass and low population level, as well as the importance of maintaining their multicultural cuisine whilst lowering food miles. With a great response, the national network of food communities and convivia has decided to meet again in early spring 2009 to further develop their regional cooperation.
The Australian meeting also raised the difficulties which producers in remote and sparsely populated rural areas face in building local economies and achieving low food miles. Around a dozen producers, cooks, academics and student delegates spoke to the group, providing a glimpse into their widely varying lives and projects, and emphasizing just how interdependent they are, and need to be, in order to build a more sustainable food future. A key direction from the meeting was to increase educational initiatives that assist consumers to make food choices with greater awareness.
Click here to view the list and some full reports of Terra Madre 2008 regional meetings.
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