Slow Food Launches Campaign for Europe’s Future Common Agricultural Policy
18 Nov 11
With the release of a strategic document in 19 European languages, Slow Food has launched a campaign calling for a more fair, ecological and inclusive Common Agricultural Policy, with the aim of reaching and involving in the discussion both the network of food communities and local institutions in each of the 27 countries concerned.
Slow Food, an international member-supported non-profit movement committed to improving the way food is produced and distributed, counts 100,000 members world wide and hundreds of convivia and Terra Madre communities across all 27 countries of the EU.
With discussions on the reform of the 2014 CAP underway, Slow Food’s founder and president, Carlo Petrini, says: “Europe needs a strong CAP, able to successfully tackle the environmental, social and economic challenges that we face”.
The document, Towards a New Common Agricultural Policy, outlines the problems afflicting our current food and agriculture system. Global industrial and intensive food production is the principal cause of environmental destruction, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity. It has created an unequal distribution of food, which sees a large part of the world suffering from obesity-related illnesses while others faces malnutrition.
In reforming the CAP, Slow Food believes the focus should be on two key elements: sustainable small-scale production and young people.
Sustainable small-scale production: Europe must rediscover its real roots in small-scale, low impact food production, integrated with nature, cleanly producing nutritious, high quality food and providing society with essential and irreplaceable environmental services.
Young people: only 7% of farmers in Europe are under 35 years of age. Farming must regain its dignity and its significance as a stimulating and gratifying life choice. It must become a valid choice for investing in the future, a path that offers satisfaction and achievement, not just sacrifice and hardship.
The document offers a series of concrete proposals for the reform of the CAP. It is a call to action for all Slow Food members to work to ensure that the principles of a sustainable, good, clean and fair food production system be absorbed as much as possible within the new policy and is an invitation for all those involved to join the campaign.
For more information, visit www.slowfood.com/sloweurope
Slow Food International Press Office
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