San Francisco was home to the Slow Food annual conference over the Labor Day weekend. The four-day Slow Food Nation event highlighted challenges in global food systems, looking toward examples of regional and local markets and a renewed appreciation for the culture and traditions of food to reconnect consumers with their producers and improves the health and economic sustainability of the entire community. Direct examples abounded as farms, ranches and restaurants that serve the Bay Area displayed their products in the farmers market, food bazaar, and taste pavilion during the event.
The conference kicked off with a panel discussion about the world food crisis broadly defined as a community's disconnection with food systems and agriculture and in some cases, its inability to feed itself. This discussion set the stage for numerous sessions that followed where experts honed in on public health issues, environmental stewardship, climate change, agriculture in school curriculums, re-localizing food systems, investing in local food systems, clean (chemical-free) food, fare wages to workers and a fare price to farmers, and putting policies in place to set these changes in motion.
Locally, Slow Food has taken root in Placer, Yolo and Sacramento counties where chapters or "convivia" have been established. Members share an appreciation for growing and preparing their own food and sharing that experience with their communities.
Slow Food is a "non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world."
For more information visit www.sierrafresh.com, www.slowfoodyolo.com or www.slowfoodsacramento.com.