After recently attending Slow Food’s Terra Madre conference held in October 2014 in Turin, Italy I find myself obsessed with the potential power of networks like Terra Madre for political and social action. This global Terra Madre network is…
“steeped in values that are revolutionary, that is, capable of changing our destiny, of transforming each one of us profoundly. There is no other way to prevent calamities from adversely affecting the planet we live on.”
– Carlos Petrini, Terra Madre 2009
I believe this definition binds ALL OF US who work for the betterment of food in our communities. Â And it is these common values that say we want to, and can, speak with one voice when the time is right.
It is the power of all the networks we belong to, whether or not they have been to the Terra Madre event. It’s also for those on my email lists of clients and people I work with through Internet Farmer and BuyingClubSoftware.com, it’s those in my community who I do work and idea exchange with, it’s those I’ve met all around the state of Maine. It’s also the networks of everyone on my lists that I’ll never even know about!
It is by asking this network to speak in one clear voice that we can be heard. This is why from this moment on I will call on this network when the time comes where we can speak as one and shape our future.
Internet Farmer won’t be bug you every day about the millions of actions going on in our food movement, but we will be back the next time we see an opportunity for us to weigh in on important issues that effect the entire US food system.
Until then, thank you for your work, keep doing it! And when it’s time to act, let’s act!
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