Kenyan farmers to join other delegates in world food conference in Turin

Turin, Italy: Over 40 Kenyan farmers will join other delegates in Italy Wednesday this week in a weeklong conference that celebrates indigenous farming around the world. The event that has been celebrated for the past ten years comes as debate to allow genetically modified food rages in Kenya two years after the banning of all GMO products.

 

3,000 delegates will be meeting in Turin, Italy, in a conference dedicated to family farming. The event organised by Slow Food International, a global grassroots organisation with support in 160 countries, brings together delegates to Turin with an aim to make a case for indigenous food and farming methods that are committed to preserving communities, traditions and environment. The event dubbed Salone del Gusto loosely translated to mean 'meeting of taste' will have exhibitions from all over the world.

 

Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre will witness the presence of over 1,000 exhibitors from 130 countries, including over 300 Slow Food Presidia, chefs, farmers, fishers, academics, artisans and representatives from the world of wine and gastronomy.

 

According to information from Slow Food office states that some of the main topics for discussion during this year's edition will be cataloging and promoting foods that are at risk of extinction. "Salone will have a specific space dedicated to the Ark of Taste to tell the individual stories of these quality productions that belong to the cultures, history and traditions of the entire planet and explain their real, commonly overseen value," reads a statement from Slow Food. Family Farming will be the second major topic in line with the UN's declaration of 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming.

 

During the event, gardens that Slow Food has created under the 10,000 Gardens project in Africa; the project seeks to improve intimate and close borders of communities or schools in Africa as prime examples of family farming. Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre will offer the possibility to learn more about this project during conferences or through first-hand reports from the delegates working on the gardens project on the ground, the statement reads.

 

Some of the hot topics that will be discussed at the conference include food and how it is connection to environmental, social, agricultural and health problems linked to climate change, increasing population, world hunger and more. Other topics that will be addressed by experts include animal welfare, food waste, land grabbing, meat consumption, indigenous people, bees and family farming.