My husband Alex and I were two of the extremely fortunate participants in both Terra Madre events.  There really hasn’t been a separation in the two events for us happily it has been a continuation.  So, I have to start talking about Terra Madre 2004 in order to tell our story of Terra Madre 2006.

Terra Madre 2004. 
We spent our first day in Torino at the Palazzo di Lavoro watching as people from around the world poured through the doors.  They came by the bus load: groups from Mongolia and Brazil, the Congo and Sweden.  As the day wore on we became increasingly aware that this was going to be an experience like no other.  We were in a room, a giant room, with farmers literally from every corner of the world.  Just being in that room, was an incredibly powerful experience for me.  We were all just “thereâ€? in a proverbial sea of humanity.  As confusing and chaotic as it seemed at times that day I think it was the perfect way to begin. We were all reminded just how much communication can take place simply by looking another person in the eye and wanting to understand.  At one moment I stood face to face with a farmer from Afghanistan. We looked each other in the eye, we understood each other, we touched hands. I will remember the moment forever.

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A dinner, forum and farmers market in honor of Slow Food Minnesota’s delegates to the Terra Madre conference
Sunday, December 17 :: Martin Luther King Recreation Center :: Minneapolis

The sun shone through the south-facing clerestory windows of the meeting room at Martin Luther King park onto 70 Slow Food enthusiasts seated at long communal tables topped with deep green cloths and set with our convivium’s white dinnerware. Guests enjoyed a cheese course as the program began. (One cheese was the first Big Woods Blue produced by Shepherd’s Way Farms since an arsonist set fire to their property two years ago. The flavor was magnificent! We drank freshly pressed apple cider — floral, and not-too-sweet — which was a perfect foil for the cheese [given that alcohol was not permitted].)

The first speakers were Slow Food Minnesota’s delegates to Terra Madre 2006, Lori and Alan Callister of Callister Farm, Dave and Florence Minar of Cedar Summit Farm and Tammy and Steve Schotthofer of Promised Land Farm. They discussed their experiences in Turin and showed pictures. Stephen Read of Shepherd’s Way, a delegate to the 2004 Terra Madre conference added his thoughts. Ron Huff moderated. Everyone agreed that being among thousands of artisanal producers and seeing and tasting the foods they make was inspiring.

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Traditional brewers / beers and styles - Europe

Hi,

One of the workshops this year showed how consumers / brewers and producers can work together to use the best local ingredients, with the best local brewing skills to provide execellent traditional beers for local use.

I (and my colleagues in European Beer Consumers Union) reperesent all the beer consumer organisations across Europe and we are always keen to hear from European countries where there is no consumer representation and from local brewers who want help to discuss and promote their products.

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The Amazon Programme: Red Seed
--Interchange-education
--Seminary: Shared Sustainance
--Diffusion: Art and Native Medicines, the Culture of Cacao
--Construction: Home- School in the Countryside for children in Juruå in the Amazon
--Conservation: Protection of indigenous art

This project is based on cooperation Center-Peripheric, where our experience is moved to the state of Amazonas, supplying and facilitating the support received with the Asociaçao dos Moradores da Vila de Céu de Mapiå (AMVCM) and Juruå. Through this project we hope to establish a flux of interchange with the populations of Mapiå and Juruå (Brasil). Each one that comes from there will receive formation in a specific workshop so as to be able to manage in his land with the knowledge acquired.

On the other hand, professionales fromhere will go to Mapiå and Juruå to offer formation, either in the composition of workshops or in other subjects of common interest.

It was in 1980 when we arrived to the small village of Cellers, an almost abandoned site ina valley of the county of Lerida, and here in this dry land of oak and olive, of silence and quiet, our compromise was slowly forged within an action of improving, ourselves as well as our receiving-giving qualities, offering in this way our drop of water in the process that the earth is actually crossing.

We are like a small labortory that finds it,s definition at each step taken, in our community ife, work social protection, etc… This is how we meet and orient ourselves each day:
--researching/working to stabilize a “solidary capital” that would help the development of our project of cultural exchange.
--receiving students and people that perceive the need of a deep change in our daily deeds and doings.
--being a facilitating bridge of an “exchange” of art and knowledge between populations

We started with a house and a few workshops that have received hundreds of people and pretend to follow, affirming the research with better means that favour self’valuation and respect between parts.

Many people have passed through the Cacao Workshop, leaving thier donation and receiving from the cacao its medicine, that force of the insight, generous and prosperous.

With the objective to waken to a conscious compromise and with the eagerness to recover the vision of work bound with the earth, we have worked with various native medicines, integrating and combining to maintain our objectives clear and coherent with our social project, the revaluation of the new rural world and the adaptation of its people actually, as apprentices of ancestral knowledge of a life in balance with the environment and co-educators of its citizens. The capability to protect and share our work and action in this society so as to reach a world brotherhood, recover the trust and the will in front of the big challenges for a dignified survival inside the new paradigm, with respect for Moter Earth as our host. And in this way help create a more stable, spiritual, and sustainable social change.

The Association “Terra Per La Terra” (Earth for the Eart) hopes to help our living together her and learn from the native populations abroad, from their medicine, their customs.

please help support the grazing of animals by purchasing grassfed proteins.
please visit our website and also submit your comments by asking for and buying grassfed products.

somos productores de quesos de cabra en la provincia llamada Santiago del Estero al norte de la argentina, nuestra casa y la pequena planta donde elaboramos los quesos esta ubicada en la localidad de San Carlos, procesamos unos 200 litros diarios de lunes a viernes, los sabados es un dia en el que se realizan otras tareas, trabajan junto con nosotros 2 personas mas y una tercera nos ayuda ocasionalmente, originalmente produciamos nuestra propia leche de cabra con una majada de 70 madres, actualmente nos dedicamos a la elaboracion de los quesos y compramos la leche a unas 6 familias de pequenos productores de la zona,
en nuestra provincia hay 15000 familias campesinas (de 21.000 productores totales) de las cuales mas de 10.000 crian cabras, el destino principal de esta produccion son los cabritos que se venden en el mercado local
la propuesta es que las familias sigan produciendo cabritos y puedan vender y/o aprovechar en la casa la produccion de leche restante.

Abracadabra Quesos

I am Martin from Slovakia.I came to Terra Madre like baker and cooker too.But I think my main mission is to leave a message here for all farmers they grow vegetable and cereals:connection to farmer Jan Slinsky was blocked by strange energy so he is not here.And he dont speak english.. but there is always somebody near him, who can translate your questions to him. Have a luck with meeting with this unbelievable person.

A little, but important invention from Slovakia that can defend us from using tractors, but hardwork too.

This is the website.

Soy Dennis Bejarano. Soy antropologa de Colombia. Mi trabajo esta concentrato de la produccion organica y el desarollo de los mercatos locales en via al fortalecimiento de la autonomia de las comunidades que trabajan desde diferentes formas de resistencia economica, politica, social, cultural y ambiental. En el Cauca, departamento de Colombia, hago parte de una organizacion de campesinos e indigenas que producen cafe organico y panela (producto a base de cana de azucar similar al azucar pero mas sana y nutritiva, con el cual se busca remplazar el uso del azucar), ademas de construir diversas formas de autonomia desde la salud - medicina tradicional, autoeducacion, aprovechamiento sostenible de los recursos naturales, economica propia, etc. En nuestro municipio trabajamos por lograr la automia para alcanzar una vida digna, justa, solidaria y respetuosa de la madre tierra.

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Desde el pasado jueves nos encontramos en Turin, para participar en Terra Madre, una representacion de las comunidades del alimento de Alava: doce delegados y tres cocineros.

Alava es un territorio que se encuentra en el Pais Vasco. Las comunidades del alimento alavesas son:

* Sal de Salinas de Anana
* Txakoli de Alava
* Alubia pinta alavesa
* Carne de potro de la Montana Alavesa
* Artzai Gazta (Queso Idiazabal de pastor)

Queremos agradecer a la organizacion de Terra Madre la invitacion a participar en este magnifico evento; tambien queremos agradecer a la ciudad y a las gentes de Turin su acogida y hospitalidad. Si alguien quiere saber mas sobre las comunidades del alimento de Alava, puede visitar la web del Convivium Slow Food Araba-Alava. Y si quieres conocer las andanzas de la representaciàon alavesa en Terra Madre y la ciudad de Turin, puedes visitar nuestro blog Hacia Terra Madre 2006.

Un abrazo para todos los participantes en Terra Madre 2006.

I am Habiyaremye Clément Ernest, and I have come to Torino from the North Province of Rwanda where I live with my two brothers. I am 22 years old, and I am here learning about farming and sustainability; I hope to bring back to my country what I have learned here. I am currently studying rural development at university, which I think I will finish in 2009.

In the meantime, I am studying both theories and practice. We students go into the mountains, where there are fields, to help the farmers there and show people how to do everything. The thing farmers do there is called Isombe; it is a kind of food from a tree that grows in Rwanda. They take the leaves from this tree and crush them, afterwards putting them on the fire, but before that people who have some money can go to the market and get salt, tomatoes, or meat to go with it. It’s my favorite food.

I visit people in the mountains; I’ve seen that Rwandans have a problem with technology. It’s difficult to show them how to plant more efficiently, because they very much prize their traditions. For example, we are trying to teach them to plant selectively, because we know that you can’t plant potatoes, beans and corn in the same field. But it is hard to convince them of this.

I’ve been here since Tuesday, and yesterday I carried the Rwandan flag in the opening session. I liked the speeches and found them very interesting, especially the speech from the President and from the African woman, Aminata Traoré.

Though I am here for the conference, I don’t know very much about Slow Food, only that it is a community that does good things for agriculture. At lunch the other day, I sat with an Italian who taught me how to make spaghetti and macaroni.

I have some of my own fields where I grow beans and maize, but it is sometimes hard to find food, because my parents have passed away and I and both of my brothers are always in school. We have some uncles who try to help us find food.