By: Melanie M. Kirby
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2020 issue of BEEKeeping Your First Three Years
Italy specifically, has long been known as a destination full of culinary delight. Between the artisanal cheeses, meats and pastas, there is also a growing movement to promote and preserve artisanal ingredients, cultural cuisines, and to promote sustainable agroecology. Back in early September of 2018, I had the pleasure of taking my first trip to Italy to attend the Slow Food International’s Terra Madre-Salon de Gusto extravaganza as a United States Slow Food Delegate. The event is held every other year in the Lignotto Fiere which was a Fiat manufacturing plant.
Since 1996 Salone del Gusto (Salon of Tastes), and since 2004 Terra Madre Salone del Gusto combined attract hundreds of thousands of visitors, Slow Food delegates, companies, activists, teachers, experts and journalists from across the world to Turin every two years. Terra Madre Salone del Gusto is an event by Slow Food, the City of Turin, the Piedmont Region.
The Slow Food network is a global, grassroots organization which was founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.
Over the past 30 years, Slow Food has grown into a global movement with participation from over 160 countries who are working to ensure everyone has access to good, clean and fair food. Slow Food believes food is tied to many other aspects of life, including culture, politics, agriculture and the environment and that through our food choices we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced and distributed, and change the world as a result.
I had first been introduced to the Slow Food concept through some neighboring farming friends near my bee farm in northern New Mexico. And when I decided to learn more about the organization, I became fascinated with this worldwide effort to reconnect with food that supports local food traditions and local producers. As we’re all enduring the COVID19 world health crisis, we are staring face blank at our health, and our communities’ abilities for food security and availability. This issue is one that makes us aware of just how important food production and access is.
As a delegate, I was able to stay with an Italian host family and join hundreds of other delegates from around the world. My host family lives in Fossano. That whole town (and several other neighboring communities) rose to the occasion to host bus-loads of farmers and foodies from around the world. My roommate was Jennifer Holmes of Hani Honey Company based in Florida (she also recently served as the Florida State Beekeepers Association President). We enjoyed delicious cappuccinos and shared our experiences as beekeepers, our inspirations and our shared interests in bringing more awareness to the exquisiteness of local foods, and flavors. As delegates, we were both also invited to participate in panel discussions about Slow Insetti (or Slow Insects). My particular panel was focused on localized breeding and preservation efforts.
These panels brought together folks from various perspectives and regions and prompted a global collaboration to establish a specific, Slow Bees network. This network has been communicating for over a year ad discussing ideas, objectives, and calls to action that we can each take to make our areas more pollinator friendly. And in honor of World Bee Day 2020, the network would like to
extend participation and share their developing projects:
About us: We are a group of Delegates of Terra Madre from Italy, Uganda, Japan, Holland, Canada, Ireland, Indonesia, Germany and United States, who contribute or have contributed to sustainable beekeeping and native pollinator projects.
Slow Bees was born from the idea to create a community within the larger Slow Food International Network that contribute or have contributed to beekeeping and native pollinator projects and is inclusive of all who share a good, clean and fair stewardship of our earth.
Slow Bees represents a diversity of people, spanning the planet, who decided together to talk about issues important to Slow Food specifically, of healthy biodiversity in Pollinators and the plants they require to thrive. As a group we are an example of a wide diversity of women and men who chose to express our commitment to pollinators, through community work and action, with a goal that all citizens support and understand the nature of pollinators, without which we would not have any biodiversity, whether plant or animal.
Our Cause: We feel the need to create an International network of partners, beekeepers and activists that can give more power to our individual actions in defense of pollinators and provide greater resonance, outreach and visibility to the messages we promote. We think that by taking action together on the same day, we can make a valuable contribution by sharing this important message with others. We are a diverse group of people who believe that talking about the world of Bees and Pollinators is the key to observing, learning, measuring and protecting Biodiversity, while inviting traditional, ancient and indigenous knowledge of sustainable agriculture practice to the fore. By community efforts and actions, we can disseminate information and bring attention to the threats to these core values, which affect all of us.
What we are doing: We have created an informal group and each is involving stakeholders in their region to stimulate both existing pollinator and organic communities and help develop new ones where none yet exist. Our plan is to create a ‘Buzzing Swarm’ of common activities over planned dates focusing on pollinator initiatives. May 20, 2020, (World Bee Day) will become the launching point of this network. May 20 is a symbolic date because EU Member States are scheduled to give their opinion on EFSA’s Bee Guidance Document. An important decision for the fate of all pollinators in Europe.
CALL TO ACTION FOR ALL BEE ENTHUSIASTS:
Launch Activities: Slow Bees First Action: On May 20th, World Bee Day everyone involved will plant an organic flowering shrub or tree to support clean Pollinator forage. We will also promote and ask people from all regions of the world to help identify good pollinator plants and trees from their region and provide organic sources for them.
hashtags are:
#plantoneforpollinators
#slowtreesforbees
The world’s main supply of fruit, vegetables and flowering ornamental trees and plants are largely pretreated at the nursery with systemic pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. No monoculture agricultural practices provide “Clean Forage” for pollinators, beneficial insects, or humans. In many regions of the world biodiversity of species and diversity of plants are severely compromised by commercial interests.
Climate Change
The Slow Bees Community supports the slow and respectful cycles of nature. Great attention is needed as Climate Change now alters the natural cycles of plant and animal systems. The increasing temperatures alter the native plants bloom cycle (antithesis, pollination, reproductive success, biodiversity conservation and enhancement) harming both food and habitat for the species who depend on flowers for nutrition. The regions worldwide that have increased monoculture crops also increases the concentration of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, which in turn affects Soil, Water, Air, Oxygen, and the entire ecosystem.
The research of many universities is supportive of urban beekeeping in large metropolitan cities around the world. But we will go much further by encouraging people to be beekeepers and assist them to contribute to providing ample and nutritious forage for all pollinators, both native and honey bee in their region of the world. We know that you can’t have healthy pollinators if you don’t have ample organic flowers for the entire growing season.
The first initiative on 20 May will involve not only the Delegates, but all our diverse partners, beekeepers, gardeners, arborists, organic growers and nurseries. Together we are inviting many participants to create great change, both in pollinator food and in our food.
For more information and to participate, visit: https: //www. slowfood.com/on-world-bee-dayslow-food-launches-an-action-to-save-the-bees/
And join the Slow Bees Facebook community at: https: //www. facebook.com/slowbees/
https://www.slowfood.com/pressrelease/terra-madre-salone-delgusto-2020/
Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.
Since its beginnings, Slow Food has grown into a global movement involving millions of people in over 160 countries, working to ensure everyone has access to good, clean and fair food.
Slow Food believes food is tied to many other aspects of life, including culture, politics, agriculture and the environment. Through our food choices we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced and distributed, and change the world as a result.
About the Author: Melanie M. Kirby is a queen honey bee breeder, consilience researcher and over-all pollinator enthusiast based in the southern Rocky Mountains.
