Slides from the presentation.

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Presentation for the ‘Native Is Better’ agro-ecology workshop, Oct 27, 2006

I am both a farmer and an ecologist. I farm with my family in the the South-east Scottish Lowlands

I want to explore why native is better and than to share with you what we do on our farm with British native breeds.

To say that ‘Native is better’ is controversial – What defines Native ?
I believe it is not helpful to think automatically because something is native it is better. It is better to consider the purposes for which animals were and are bred.

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At Terra Madre we talked about our experience – that of a small group of restaurants, suppliers and an environment- alist - at practical implementation of good clean and fair, and how we are now working towards expanding this, creating simple collaborative networks of restaurants and suppliers. It had a great response, and a lot of people asked for copies of the presentation. So I’ve put it up here on the blog. We are feeling out way here. Focusing on practical implementation brings up lots of issues, so – please, please! – respond with comments and questions.

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Moi c’est Yapi Manho Mathieu. Je viens d’Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

Je suis agronome et je travaille comme formateur des agriculteurs du Ong GDS - Grain de Seneva (plus de 200 personnes).
Les agriculteurs s’occupent de la production de papaye Solo n.8, Sunset et Sunrise pour l’exportation et Red Panama pour l’extraction de papaïne, substance voisine de la pepsine.
Comme formateur je vais dans les villages à la rencontre des agriculteurs pour leur enseigner la pratique agricole et l’importance de la biodiversité sur place.

Pour moi Slow Food est un rêve, une philosophie de la construction de producteurs nouveaux, avec de nouvelle mentalité. L’Afrique noire regorge toutes les diversités biologiques et doit consommer cette biodiversité et en propager dans le monde entier.
Dans ces jours-là j’ai été frappé par l’idée avancée par Madame Traorè du Mali au meeting des Africains. Elle a invité les Africains à prendre conscience de ce qu’ils disposent en terre africaine.
Dans le futur je crois que la communauté africaine doit s’autosuffir, se nourrir, et diffuser l’information et le rêve de Slow Food. L’Afrique doit apprendere à produire africain pour jouir des fruits de ses labeurs. Il faut consommer africain.

Nous remercions la président de Slow Food, que Dieu le garde en vie longtemps.
A l’édition prochaine.

Water, Politics, War
Dwight Stanford, Master’s student, UNISG-Colorno
Where oil was one of the world’s primary source of conflict in the previous 20 years, it seems likely the new source will be water and it’s availability to all peoples.  Estimates from the UN predict 1/3 of the world’s population will suffer in the next 20 years from water shortages for both potable water and water for crop growth.
Presenters from five regions spoke of their battles and successes with water usage.

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For export reasons for industrial cheese makers, the regulation for making an rawmilk softcheese are very strong and makes it impossible to start with this kind of cheese

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Notre convivium a eie cree en Mai 2006 : nqus sommes une communaute de peche artisaale au Senegal regroupant des pecheurs des transformatrices et des mareyeuses :
Nqtre objectif :
_ Valoriser les produits de la peche artisanale
_Proteger les ressourses halieutiques pour une peche durable
-Echanger avec d’auitres communautes de nourriture et d autres conviviums dans le monde entier pour partager nos experiences

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.

I would like to see a whole load more restaurants, hotels, cafes and bed & breakfasts etc in the UK pledge to the local food on the plate philosophy.  It really is not difficult once the chefs/buyers put their minds to it.  As outlined by Nick Barclay in the UK meeting this morning, the whole idea becomes second nature and a way of life.  I’ve been practicing a complete local/in season food ideal since I started my “country house dinner, bed and breakfast” business (http://www.lowerbuckton.co.uk) and apart from being such a natural, obvious path to follow it also becomes a real marketing tool which works - which means a higher income and an added bonus to know that what you serve is sound.  Those who simply serve local stuff when the summer vegetables/fruit etc are abundant and as soon as Winter comes go back to their imported-1000s-miles-green-beans really need to have a few lessons on what to do with and how to cook all the British winter root vegetables and greens!  I find that the punters who come to stay and feed at Lower Buckton ARE interested in what they eat and that it’s what I write about the food on my website which attracts them.  Using locally sought bought and caught food in YOUR restaurant could increase your turnover BUT please don’t forget the PASSION.  The sourcing of food should be a pleasure not a bore - there are producers on YOUR doorstep just waiting for you.