Terra Madre 2006 Opening Day

Terra Madre 2006 officially opened on Thursday, October 26, with a parade of nations, one representative from each country bearing his or her flag.

The event recalled the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, which Torino hosted earlier this year.  The representatives marched in alphabetical order and took their seat on the main stage facing the audience.

Once all of the national representatives had been seated, the speeches began.  Everyone in the audience had been given headsets, so simultaneous translation was available in several languages (English, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese).

Mayor of Torino, Sergio Chiamparino, welcomed everyone to Torino.   Several Italian government officials followed. Oddly, President of the Italian Republic, Georgio Napolitano, was not present when introduced, so the entire ceremony ground to a halt.  As thousands waited for his arrival, I began squirming in my seat.  Thanks to a childhood of boredom in church, I have little patience for lengthy ceremonial gatherings and the jetlag was beginning to take hold.  When my head nearly rolled off my neck, I jumped up and ran outside to get some fresh air, making my way past the throngs of cigarette smokers just outside the exits.

Fortunately, Napolitano soon appeared and everyone rose to welcome him.  Despite the delay, I suppose it was an honor that the President of Italy took time out of his busy schedule to attend this event.  His presence certainly underscores the importance Terra Madre’s mission.

The highlight of opening day, however, was the appearance of Carlo Petrini at the podium.  Petrini is the Italian journalist who founded Slow Food as a protest to the opening of a McDonalds at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome. 

Petrini’s ideas and writings have been a real inspiration to me, so I was eager to hear him speak in person. (I was also happy that I could listen to and understand his speech in Italian, as I heard some people grumbling later about the deadpan English translation that had failed to convey his passion.) 

Petrini welcomed everyone to the second edition of Terra Madre.  In his speech, he pointed out that the market economy that controls global food production is increasingly failing to sustain life on this planet.  Our modern industrial agriculture system depletes soils, wastes water, and destroys biodiversity and ecosystems.  Ours is an imbalanced system, one that allows starvation in half the world and over-consumption in the other half.  However, Petrini pointed out, these problems cannot be solved by northern (ie, “developed”) countries alone, even though they are the ones who have created them.  Rather, he emphasized that we need to look to local economies and communities and see how their traditions and practices have managed to maintain biodiversity over the centuries.   An eloquent and spirited speaker, Petrini was interrupted frequently by applause.  You can hear a brief excerpt of his speech here.

After Petrini, many other speakers took the stage, including Kamal Mouzawak, founder of the farmers' market in Beirut, and Michael Pollan and Alice Waters from the U.S.

For other accounts of Terra Madre, see reporter Kim Severson’s article in the New York Times, Chowhound’s dispatches, and the Terra Madre blog.

The other lasting impression I have from opening day at Terra Madre was a man I spotted in the aisle with a videocamera taping the event (as were many others around me).  The man, who had dark hair and a thick black mustache, rotated around with his camera, getting a 360 degree shot of the assembled crowd.  When his camera lingered on me I smiled and waved at him.  A few moments later he came over to check out my nametag (we all wore badges around our necks with our name and home country).  I checked his, too, and we nodded at one another in greeting.  I was there representing the U.S.  He was from Iran.  Where else would we have had the opportunity to meet like this?  I tried to talk to him but he didn’t speak any English.  I really wanted to find out more about why he was here.  Was he a chef?  A farmer? 

Later I checked the official list of food communities printout which we were given upon registration.  There are three listed from Iran: Fars Province Nomadic Herders, Garmsar Cereal Growers, and Khorsan Spice Producers.  I wish I had been able to talk to him, to find out where he was from and what he hoped to accomplish at Terra Madre. 

My brief interaction with the Iranian made me wonder how the farmers in Iraq are faring, given the terror and chaos surrounding them.  From history classes, I recall that present-day Iraq was the “cradle of civilization” and it was there, in the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture began in 8000 B.C.  The Terra Madre website lists one delegate from Iraq, a chef, but no food communities (ie, farmers and food producers). 

What is happening now in the very birthplace of agriculture?  And what is the U.S., in its so-called effort to “rebuild Iraq” doing in this area?  What I've managed to learn so far is not very reassuring.  See GRAIN's report, "Against the Grain,"  and two interesting articles on the Organic Consumers Assocation website. 

Next: Slow Food Nation

Comments

[Tana]

There is a good article at the San Francisco Chronicle about its local participants in Terra Madre, and the inspiration they derived.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/08/FDGADM3JHN1.DTL

[Angie]

How did I miss the tuna sperm?

Thanks,Tana!