It was a sunny day in 1986 when a tall, handsome, bearded man by the name of Carlo Petrini got word of McDonald’s’ plan to open a restaurant near the famous Piazza di Spagna in Rome, not too far from his home town of Bra, Italy. In an attempt to resist this fast food offense, Petrini began mobilizing people to fight against this invasion in a movement that is now internationally known as the “Slow Food” Movement. By 1989, the founding manifesto of the international Slow Food movement was signed in Paris, France by delegates from 15 countries. At its heart is the aim to promote local foods and centuries-old traditions of gastronomy and food production. Conversely, this means an opposition to fast food, industrial food production and globalization. Since 1986, the Slow Food movement has expanded to over 100,000 members with branches in over 150 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Japan. With its “Good, clean and fair” motto, the Slow Food movement is striving to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and encourages farming of plants, seeds and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem (Slow Food International). Through these means they hope to create a better, more sustainable and healthier planet for everyone. While the Slow Food movement began with modest, local minded roots, it has since expanded to become potentially the most effective attempt to guide the direction of globalization. Globalization has to ability to harm as well as help. On one hand, Globalization “homogenizes” and allows multinational corporations to extend their grasp to every corner of the world. Simultaneously, globalization can also spread local cultures allowing small farmers and artisans to reach places they have never dreamt of touching. Slow Food believes they can obtain their goal of “virtuous globalization” through their main objectives, which include:
• Preserving and promoting local and traditional food products
• Developing an "Ark of Taste” for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated
• Organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products)
• Promoting "taste education"
• Educating consumers about the risks of fast food and citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
• Educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties
• Developing various political programs to preserve family farms
• Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering, pesticides and for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agriculture policy
• Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplace (Andrews)
Through these objectives, Slow Food has been striving for a healthier and more just planet. With it’s peaceful protest approach, Slow Food originally formed by taking up “defense of the purple asparagus of Albenga, the black celery of Trevi, and Vesuvia Apricot, the long tailed sheep of Laticauda and the succulent Sienese pig” – local food staples of Italy that are disappearing due to globalization (OCA). According to the Petrini, one hundred years ago people ate about 120 different species of food. Today, the average diet is made up of mainly 10 to 12 species. This utter destruction of culture and pleasure in life has led to Slow Food’s firm defense of quiet material pleasure, the only way they see to oppose the universal folly of fast life brought on by globalization (Schneider). While protecting local foods and small farmers became their founding basis, Slow Food’s mission and impact has become much more expanse. Due to the recent food security crises, mad cow scare and the debate over genetically modified foods worldwide, Slow Food, with its focus on natural and organic methods, has acquired a political importance and popularity they did not even expect as they are now being heralded as the future solution leader to these growing global problems (Stille). And they aren’t just farming; they are taking action. As Slow Food offices open around the world, each chapter has taken on the responsibility of creating change in their own arena. Recently, the Brussels office has been lobbying the European Union on agriculture and trade policy while the New York office has been organizing trade fairs while creating markets for traditional food producers. Just two years ago, Slow Food “flexed its muscles” in the face of the EU who at the time was attempting to enforce extremely rigid hygiene standards that had become the norm for many giant American food corporations, including Kraft Foods. While these systems has been successfully implemented in the US, in Europe these laws would have imposed the impossible burdens of reporting, paperwork and new equipment on thousands of small farmers, driving them out of business. In response to this legislation proposal, Slow Food mobilized, gaining over half a million signatures on a petition, leading to the exemption from these laws for thousands of small farmers (Stille). While the organic food movement is often seen as elitist, Petrini hopes to solve issues for the poor through Slow Food. How does he hope to accomplish this? As he says, we need to return to a “real economy”. Petrini knows there will be “great problems for the poor people of the world” and hopes his movement will “lead to freedom from a false, dog-eat-dog economy” – that’s the opportunity. For this to happen, most importantly, agriculture need to “returns to a local economy” (Guardian). For this to be successful, the “revolution” cannot just affect producers but also needs to involve “co-producers” – Petrini’s term for “customers”, a word he “detests”. This globalized, false economy is marginalizing people and telling them they are irrelevant and the shortcomings of globalization are being. But how can we fix the economy to better the standard of living for the average human? Petrini believes the answer is within his movement. New schools of economic thought can “only emerge if you prepare the ground, like plants. There has to be a new humanism…a change in the values, a change in the idea of what money means and what richness is”. By returning to simple, local roots we can push aside the old humanism, of being seen as good because of your expensive car or big house, and usher in a new humanism where it is better to recycle and give, rather than constantly consume (Hickman). But the effects of this movement can be even more basic. Over the past 50 years or so, food has lost its value. Centuries ago food was considered sacred and respected; today, waste is a fundamental characteristic of the consumer society. Every day in Italy over 4,000 tons of food are thrown away. In England, that number jumps to 10,000 tons. By focusing on good, local quality, and returning to our older values by bringing respect back to food, the Slow Food movement is actually fighting food waste and helping secure food for those that previously were going hungry. In returning to a reliance on small farms and eating locally, the Slow Food movement not only increases the quality of food, but also increases the access to it while decreasing food waste exponentially (not to mention it is just better for the environment). As Petrini points out, “as long as quality is seen as a luxury, everything is a disaster. Quality should be a right for everyone. We should be producing less so there is less waste” (Slow Food International). While taking a semi-unorthodox approach, the Slow Food movement can serve as a model for small, local social movements that find their niche and want to begin to make impact on a larger scale. Originally operating solely in the small Italian town of Bra, the movement has grown to over 100,000 official members with chapters around the world while simultaneously, keeping their local, detail oriented perspective and framework in tact. For example, while in the past they might have only been promoting the consumption of local foods in certain towns, recently, those farmers were able to band together under the umbrella of the movement to fight large, continent-wide legislation and protect small farmers across the EU. There is an important lesson here – build your foundation and then expand on those same values and framework. This is very applicable to the social justice work I do on campus, as I am trying to expand one of my organizations to other campuses without diluting our values and mission or imposing our morals on others. But can this movement stay relevant? Sales of organic food are now starting to decline, as people’s wallets get tighter; however, Petrini believes the growth for his movement is only beginning. They are expanding outside their niche - middle and lower class people deserve quality and healthy food too. We just need to change our perspectives and stop “seeing quality as a luxury,” says Petrini (Guardian). According to TIME, the future of the environmental movement is in the hands of organizations such as Slow Food as well as similar groups. That is a tall order. As the chance of international action on climate change has become “more remote than ever” and as the EPA comes under regular attack, the environmental movement faces a challenge to “stay relevant”. But movements such as Slow Food are rising in its place, aligning consumers (or “co-producers”), producers, the media and even politicians. Access to quality food is something everyone can agree on and Slow Food is leveraging this to create wide scale change, altering the way we work and relate to one another. Through their framework, they are able to “create just the sort of political and social transformation that environmentalists have failed to achieve in recent years” (TIME). Today, Slow Food USA is “one of the most dynamic new food movements”. As the more mainstream sustainability crusade continues to take hits, the organic food movement continues to mature and grow. Many consider it the best vehicle remaining to achieve our environmental goals. Our current industrialized and globalized way of farming is damaging our land, water and climate. Reforming agriculture through the Slow Food movement (and similar movements) will not just help us eat healthier foods, but will also help the fight against greenhouse gas emission and water pollution. What was started by Slow Food has now taken more mainstream roots with bigger celebrity faces such as Michele Obama, and her home gardening program, promoting the cause. Even the Department of Agriculture, a usual proponent of industrialized, genetically modified farming, has started a “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” campaign (TIME). While the Slow Food movement has been criticized as being elitist and out of touch, when you dig deeper you discover the greater impact that the movement can have on all humans, not just the rich, as it strives for not only better quality food, but a better quality planet.