International Slow Food conference in Italy features food communities from around the globe

PCC Farmland Trust’s “sustainable food community” will represent the local, organic food movement of the Northwest at the 2010 Terra Madre conference in Turin, Italy in October 2010. Fittingly, the Farmland Trust’s Terra Madre team consists of a farmer, a chef and a staff member.

More than 5,000 representatives from the worldwide Terra Madre network, born from the Slow Food movement, will meet for the fourth time – coinciding with the international Slow Food fair, Salone del Gusto. The five-day meeting will bring together food producers, cooks, academics, youth and musicians from all over the world, coming together biennially to share innovative solutions and time-honored traditions for keeping small-scale agriculture and sustainable food production alive and well.

A new feature in 2010 will be a focus on cultural and linguistic diversities – in recognition of the need to defend minority ethnic groups and indigenous languages, and with an appreciation of the value of oral traditions and memory. At the opening ceremony, representatives of indigenous communities from all continents across the world will speak to the audience in their native languages.

Representing PCC Farmland Trust will be Kelly Sanderbeck, Communications & Development Director; farmer Andrew Stout of Full Circle Farm, who owns land preserved by the Trust; and Chef Maria Hines of Tilth Restaurant, who started the “Local Chefs for Local Farms” dinners to educate a wider public about the work of the Trust.  Other delegates chosen from Washington state include producers, chefs, educators and activists from Lopez, Orcas and Whidbey islands, Pine Stump Farm, Left Foot Organics, Kitsap Food Chain, Organic Seed Alliance, Washington Sustainable Food & Farming Network, and the Seattle Culinary Academy.