A date to mark on your diaries right now: 8 October. An extraordinary edition of Terra Madre Salone del Gusto will kick off in Turin, it will be the largest ever and will continue for six months with a completely different format than usual, with digital, physical and worldwide events.
"We will use all our strength - says Carlo Petrini, president of Slow Food in presenting the event - to show that there are thousands of communities, made up of farmers, artisans, producers, fishermen, who develop an economy at the service of the commons, territorial level, all over the world.
And they, in a certain sense, will host Turin and Piedmont in every corner of the world: thousands of people carry the event, the territory and the ideas that flourish here in their hearts».
In the meantime, the platform that will contain the digital activities and the calendar of physical events is already online at www.terramadresalonedelgusto.com: until April 2021, it will gradually and progressively feed on content.
The claim of the 2020 edition is Our Food, Our Planet, Our Future. Food, planet, future: a concatenation of relationships that tell of how, depending on the way we relate to our food - how we produce it, distribute it, choose it, consume it - this will have significantly different impacts on our planet.
«The whole world is experiencing a triple crisis – argues Petrini – climatic, economic and pandemic. We need a vision of profound change. It will take time, but we can already see the seeds in the economy expressed by the Terra Madre communities. The time has come to recognize and amplify the value of these communities around the globe.
The message is loud and clear: in this year marked so heavily by the suffering caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, by the global economic crisis, by the lockdowns all over the world, there is a value that has not only not been cancelled, but rather it has been brought back to the fore and of its importance many have finally acquired awareness: the value of being part of a community».
"Slow Food's commitment has always focused on the conservation of biodiversity, through respect for the environment, the promotion of agroecology, the transmission of local knowledge," adds Francesco Sottile, of the Executive Committee of Slow Food Italy.
The dramatic events of recent months, such as the increase in deforestation in the Amazon, the fires in Australia, the record temperatures in Siberia, push us to broaden our commitment: thus, from an objective, the defense of biodiversity becomes for Slow Food the instrument for combating climate change. "We do it through the activities of our community, producers and farmers, over the course of six months of cultural exchange".
Terra Madre overview of the 2018 edition
The first events are concentrated on the dates initially scheduled for the event, from 8 to 12 October: Conferences, Food Talks and many other innovative formats created by Slow Food to discuss the topics that are closest to our hearts - nutrition, sustainability, the environment and fairness – in addition to traditional appointments such as the Taste Workshops, which can be attended both remotely (by purchasing the tasting kits from home) and in person.
Speaking of face-to-face events: in addition to the Taste Workshops, the first Table Appointments scheduled in Turin between 8 and 12 October are already online and bookable.
Over the next few weeks, the World calendar will be enriched with many other activities organized by the Slow Food network in Italy and around the world: in the next few weeks, in order not to miss any of them, just take a look at the large planisphere on the Terra Madre website Salone del Gusto, which will light up in correspondence with the physical places where the activities are organised.
The Market of Italian and international producers doubles: in addition to the many squares that will host the best of local productions, organized in different corners of the planet, the 2020 edition inaugurates the online version, with a dedicated platform that becomes a real virtual showcase through which to discover the exhibitors and contact them, and then also with an e-commerce, active from 8 October and available for all six months, on which to buy their products.
Confirmed the B2B area, the space that Terra Madre dedicates to exhibitors, buyers and sales agents interested in business agreements and is organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Turin and Unioncamere Piemonte as part of the activities of the Enterprise Europe Network, co-financed by European Commission to support the competitiveness of European SMEs.
«The strength of Terra Madre Salone del Gusto lies in the ability to make realities even belonging to distant and different worlds dialogue with each other, making the event an unmissable opportunity to raise awareness on the issues of food, nutrition education, the protection of biodiversity » declares the mayor of Turin, Chiara Appendino.
«The new model is an innovative choice which, in a moment of objective difficulty for organizing events in the more traditional way, has made it possible to transform an obstacle into an opportunity, while at the same time allowing Turin and Piedmont to be kept at the center of the event and to broaden the horizons of the event".
