My name is Estrella Bernal, I am working in sustainable rural development and belong to a Local Action Group from Los Monegros ( Aragon, Spain), working with European Projects founding. I am looking for associations, institutions or organizations in general working with organic producers and/or local tourism business with environmental responsibility criteria. Also associations of organic producers or producers would be of interest to us. We also work in close contact with an assosiation of organic producers in Los Monegros (Dorondon Monegros). If you would like to cooperate with us in organic production and responsible tourism, please, send an e-mail to bercue@unizar.es.
Few farmers cultivate as close to “everything under the sunâ€? as does Bill Crepps - stone fruits, Asian vegetables, roots, brassicas, nuts, persimmons, greens, alliums, nightshades, figs, corn, and hard squash to name some of his crops. Bill’s farm embodies one of the most fundamental principles of sustainable agriculture: diversity. Everything Under the Sun Farm specializes in dried fruits and vegetables, and Bill is interested in connecting with other farmers attending Terra Madre who dry fruit and vegetables.
Bill is a delegate from the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market food community. The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is operated by the nonprofit Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture and brings together over 80 farms, 30 artisans and purveyors, and thousands of shoppers every week at the historic Ferry Building in San Francisco. Farmers come from throughout California’s diverse growing regions to sell their fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, cheeses, olive oil, and prepared foods to urban residents. Click here to view a slideshow of the market.
How do you do? I’m Tomoko Yoshida, a female farmer in Miura City, Kanagawa, Japan.
I and my family are engaged in farming every day and grow vegitables and fruits. Miura City is very famous for its production of vegitables, especially Dikon radish.
Do you know Daikon radish? Daikon radish belongs to the Brassicaceae family and originates from the area between Central Asia and Meiterrinean area including Italy.
The Daikon radish is charactered by its big root. In fact Daikon means big root in Japanese. Its root is mainly white, but some varieties are red or purple. Its root is eaten, but its leaves are often eaten, too. It was brought to Japan more than one thousand years ago via China after long long journey.
And since then many reginal varietie have been developed and spread throughout Japan.
The Daikon radish has been developed extraordinarily and become “The King of vegitables” in the light of production and
consumption in Japan, though the Daikon radish disappeared in many areas where once the Daikon radish was produced.
For example, in Italy the Daikon radish was stopped producing and eating since 15th century probably because of some religious reasons.
There are more than 110 regional varieties of the Daikon radish inJapan and each variety is deeply related to the reginal dietry culture. But now the Dikon radish becomes standardized to the F1 hybrid Aokubi (green neck) and almost all reginal varieties are face to disappear because of economical reasons.
In our area, we have one excellent variety, Miura Daikon. It is very good taste, especally suitable for boiled dishes and its shape is typical Daikon. But now production of Miura Daikon is decreasing rapidlly.
Diversity of the Daikon radish in Japan is the “Symbol of Diversty of Taste” and the “Symbol of the Gifted from other societies” in Japan , I think. So we Japanese must protect regional varities of the Daikon dish.
I grow Miura Daikon and also made the book about the history and the way of cooking.
The name of the book is “Miura Daikon Full Course”.
I would like to appeal the importance of protecting reginal varieties of the Diakon radish in Japan with other two communities releted to the Daikon radish from Japan.
At any rate I’m looking forward to seeing youï¼?
Hello from Tom Oliver of the Three Counties (with The Weslh Marches) Perry. I am leading the Community of Perry Producers from the UK and would be very happy to meet with other cider or perry producers from around the world who are attending the TM or Salone. Please email oliversciderandperry@theolivers.org.uk or get in contact while over there. It would be great to arrange some (extracuricular) meetings to discuss matters particular to cider and perry.
Best from Tom.
Chi sono i pastori vaganti?
Sono i custodi di un’antica tradizione: con le loro greggi, praticano il “pascolo vagante�, un’attività (regolata da precise norme giuridiche fin dal 1954) che comporta lo spostamento quasi quotidiano degli animali alla ricerca di foraggio. Trascorrono la stagione estiva in alpeggio, mentre la condizione di “vaganti� si esplica nelle transumanze da e verso l’alpeggio, ma soprattutto nel continuo vagabondaggio tra le zone di pianura e di collina dal tardo autunno alla primavera. Questi uomini ed i loro aiutanti conducono una vita difficile, scandita dalle esigenze del gregge, dalle stagioni e dalle condizioni atmosferiche. L’apparente libertà senza limiti e senza confini che il termine “vagante� può ispirare nell’ignaro osservatore, in realtà è quindi fortemente ristretta da questi fattori, che sono però intrinsechi del lavoro e non costituiscono un elemento di eccessivo disturbo.
Salve a tutti, mi chiamo Paolo Sorci e sono un delegato della Valnerina (Umbria), alla prossima edizione di Terra Madre.
Ho già partecipato all’edizione di due anni fa ed è con grande gioia che mi appresto a farlo anche quest’anno.
La Pezzata Rossa d’Oropa(P.R.O.) è razza bovina autoctona della biellese Valle del fiume Elvo (Elf il nome celtico dei folletti) dove si è diffusa trovando l’areale ottimale di allevamento. La P.R.O., inserita dalla F.A.O. nell’elenco mondiale delle razze in pericolo di estinzione, è presente in piu’ di 400 allevamenti, con un patrimonio complessivo di circa 7.800 capi (vacche, giovenche e giovani). E’ razza a duplice attitudine, apprezzata per la buona qualita’ della carne e caratterizzata dall’elevata qualita’ del latte, con titoli medi in grasso del 3,7 % e in proteina del 3,5 %, particolarmente adatta alla produzione dei formaggi biellesi (toma e macagno).
I bovini pezzato rossi sono animali molto rustici, con basse produzioni di latte (mediamente 25 q.li), ma nel contempo molto frugali, essendo alimentati quasi esclusivamente con erba (pascolamento per piu’ di 6 mesi) e fieno. Il pascolo interessa gran parte delle aree montane, piu’ svantaggiate e marginali e svolge per questo un’importantissima ed insostituibile azione di tutela paesaggistica ed ambientale.
L’Associazione Allevatori di Biella e Vercelli svolge dal 1979 i controlli sulla produzione e gestisce il Registro Anagrafico della razza. organizzando le valutazioni morfologiche e curando l’inserimento dei dati delle bovine iscritte ( circa 3.500 vacche) con un apposito software gestionale. La peculiarita’ della Pezzata Rossa d’Oropa e la necessita’ di tutelarne l’irripetibile patrimonio genetico hanno indotto l’Unione Europea ad inserire la razza in un programma di aiuto (Regolamento C.E.E. 2078/92).
Il programma si è concluso nel 2006, e l ’Unione Europea dovrebbe decidere il proseguimento degli aiuti fino al 2013 con l’attuazione dei Piani Regionali di Sviluppo Rurale..
Per il mantenimento della razza (così poco produttiva rispetto alle razze bovine più importanti, Frisona e Bruna) gli aiuti comunitari sono indispensabili.
Terramadre può aiutare i nostri allevatori, riconoscendo la straordinaria unicità rappresentata dalla loro Comunità ed evidenziando come la Pezzata Rossa d’Oropa possa essere considerata a tutti gli effetti ormai a triplice attitudine:
latte, carne e ambiente .
Okay, it just happened again. After a month on the road (doing research on farmers’ markets), I’m finally home in Colorno for a night or two. Bought some nice cherry tomatoes from Coop (yes, I should have gone to Fruttaviva, but I needed--needed--a bottle of Prosecco as well. Dunque...) I washed the little babes, most of which I had to pop off their rigor-mortis’d-but-still-fragrant stems. And it’s that fragrance--green tomato leaf--that has just happened into my nostrils again.
We are the voices of Terra Madre. We believe in good, clean and fair food.
These are our stories, our pictures, our questions and answers, our problems, concerns, fears, failures and successes.
