Terra Madre, the Overture

— Kim Barker

Terra Madre (Mother Earth) is the name chosen for the international gathering of farmers planned by Slow Food Italy, which was held in October in Turin, Italy.

Slow Food is an organization and a belief that we must slow down and think about what we are doing. Our American culture is in such a hurry that we demand fast food. For food to be fast it must be consistent, there is no time for cooking one item longer than the next. To cook every hamburger the same length of time, they must all be exactly alike. The same holds true for every other item on the menu. They must be alike.

Think what this means: with fast food there can be no genetic diversity, there can be no seasonality, and the quality must be average or below, because large amounts of exactly identical high quality product is much harder to come by than exactly identical low quality product.

Carlo Petrini started the Slow Food movement in Italy in the mid-eighties in opposition to American fast food coming to Europe. But Slow Food is about much more than eating. Slow Food is about protecting old breeds of livestock, old species of plants, genetic diversity, soils, cultures, sustainability, and people.

Slow Food is about stopping the destruction caused by fast food— the destruction of genetic diversity, of health, of cultures, of livelihoods, of soils, and of people.

The program at Terra Madre consisted of eight concurrent sessions three times a day for about two and a half hours, plus a few one-hour sessions during the early afternoon. Each session had about 10 or 12 speakers.

The neat thing was that the speakers were mostly farmers. People from 128 countries were telling their own amazing stories of how they farm, the crops and animals they grow, how they market them, and how they live.

One session I attended was about AOC (Appalachia D’origin Controlle) labeling, or in simple English, regional or local labeling. The AOC is the group charged with making sure products meet the specs they are supposed to meet. There are local labels for wines, cheese, poultry, lamb, and pork. Some beef is labeled, though not much.

Each label is granted only when a distinct difference can be proven. There are several ways products can be proven to deserve a label. The label may designate a region, or a specific breed of livestock produced in a certain way, or a specific method of making wine or cheese, for example.

One speaker noted that it was possible for a label to become almost meaningless if two groups were seeking the label for a region, with different specs in mind, and then compromised so there were no meaningful differences. Usually in such cases the label was denied altogether.

Another speaker gave the example of cheddar cheese, which originated near the village of Cheddar in Somerset, England. Today, cheddar cheese is a common name that is produced all over the world, so it would be impossible to get a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) label for it now.

However, there are some local cheeses that are named after the caves they are aged in that have a PDO due to the historical significance of their local production. Obviously, these are produced in limited quantity, so the labels are of local significance only.

The World Trade Organization is trying to destroy the whole idea of PDO’s, claiming that it is just a form of protectionism. The real reason, as one of the opening speakers said, is that “Identities hinder globalization, both of the identity of the food and of the farmer.” He urged the 5,000 farmers there to be true to their identity and the identity of their food.

One speaker from Italy began his presentation with a simple slide showing a donkey leading the way through a rocky mountain pass followed by a man leading a horse. Both the horse and the donkey were loaded with huge packs.
He then told about this mountain valley where a specific breed of cattle were raised, and had been raised for centuries. These cattle were milked there and cheese was made using old, old, traditional methods. Then horses and donkeys hauled the cheese out to be sold.

He ended his talk by pointing out that the donkey was not being led, saying, “Even the donkey knows where this cheese comes from, it comes only from here.”

PDO’s are not protectionism. They are a communication from producer to buyer, so the buyer knows where his food comes from, how it was produced, who produced it, and that it is food, not poison.

On my way to Terra Madre I spent a day in France talking with a sheep producer who markets about half of her lamb under a PDO label. She talked about the opportunity and the obligation of the label. She saw it not as just as an opportunity for a premium price, but as an obligation to produce exactly what that label required. She was crossing some of her 800 sheep to breed in more fertility and twinning ability, and as a result, some of her lamb did not fit the label. The premium for making the label was about 30%. But she felt that she could get twins that would be more profitable than a single lamb at a higher price.

If she were fully committed to making every lamb fit the label, she could not experiment with crossbreeding. She pointed to two lambs that genetically were the same three-way cross, but one had a white face, the other a gray face. One would make the label and one would not. This irritated her, but again she referred to the obligation of the label. She understood it perfectly, but it still aggravated her.

Some farmers at the conference said the price premiums offered by making the label were enough to keep them in business, and they intended to make sure they produced what the label demanded. They liked the idea of producing a product with a definite identity, and they like being a part of that identity.

Again, the idea of Slow Food is to promote local food systems using old species and breeds, traditional ways of cooking and eating, and protecting old cultures and methods.

Carlo Petrini, in his closing remarks, said, “Italy is known for music, for opera. Every opera begins with an overture, Terra Madre is the overture. We have begun. You have the seeds, you must go and sow the seeds.”(For more information on AOC labeling search on the Internet for “AOC- France”, or AOC- Italy” or “AOC Europe.”)

To find a Slow Food group near you, go to www.slowfoodusa.org

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