This is a CTP of initiative: Slow Food USA
This critical turning point relates to the decision of the new national direction of Slow Food USA to reinitiate the work of the Ark of Taste national committee, after a standby period (from 2011 to 2013) in which most of the biodiversity projects were suspended by the former Slow Food USA´s president.
The decision of re-establishing the Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste project, in 2013, was preceded by intense internal communications in which Slow Food USA leaders perceived an increased interest among the associates, in the work of the Ark of Taste and the creation of food biodiversity projects involving the mapping of regional endangered food products.
This critical turning point coincides also with a critical internal period in which the new direction of the Slow Food USA reorganized the structure of the national association. They deliberated about how the new internal structure should be organized, in terms of committee functioning, roles of any committee, etc. Then, discussions were held among a group of people who have been involved in biodiversity programs for a long time, including leaders of groups, the new executive director as well as the reduced headquarters’ staff.
The people who have been leading these biodiversity projects from the beginning decided to come back and take the challenge to re-start the project
The new leadership and the Board of Slow Food USA, said: it is a mistake to abandon this work, so we need to continue this work! Gary Nabhan as well as other significant players came back and they recovered a lot of the people who have been in Slow Food since the beginning. They were happy to come back, and embrace this concept. I think that the new system is working well
As this quotation illustrates, the new directors were able to convince former Ark of Taste coordinators to come back, motivating more chapter leaders and common practitioners to join several Slow Food projects like the “10,000 gardens in Africa project” or school gardens at the grassroots level.
Re-starting the biodiversity projects meant for Slow Food USA associates the best way to remain focused on their core goals and start to revitalize internal relationships and renew people´s commitment to Slow Food mission. Besides, Slow Food´s reputation grew up in the international sphere, signing in 2013 an agreement with the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to collaborate for the promotion of agriculture and food systems that are more inclusive locally, nationally and internationally.
For Slow Food, biodiversity is a significant issue, and there was still the sentiment that Slow Food champions something that no other group was doing. The agricultural biodiversity is a kind of complex idea that many people don't understand. People don´t comprehend the importance and the significance of agricultural biodiversity. The idea of the Ark of Taste is to bring this issues to public attention. In collaboration with Slow Food chapter events, ark of taste foods can be nominated, tasted, grown and celebrated
The critical turning point was produced by a reduced group of people who were involved in the Slow Food USA´s Board of Directors, as well as the recent elected Slow Food USA´s Executive Director, Richard McCarthy, and some experienced members like Megan Larmer, who have been dedicated to biodiversity and Ark of Taste projects for a period of time. Also involved were several long-experienced leaders who maintained the need of refocusing Slow Food’s mission to better serve local chapters and to reinitiate biodiversity projects. The respondent highlights the hard work and commitment of these people, who, with adverse conditions, very limited funds and reduced staff, were able to overcome an internal crisis which had divided the national organization for almost a year.
Chapter leaders and governors were also involved in the coproduction of this critical turning point. During the celebration of 2013 Slow Food USA National Leadership Conference, organized by Slow Food USA in New Orleans (Louisiana), more than 200 participants, representing 500 convivia attended this national conference. Attendees discussed on the Slow Food’s mission and goals and endorsed the re-establishment of the Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste project. After this national congress, Slow Food created in every State a local Ark Commission, engaging local chapters in the search and identification of new products to be included in the project. This further reinforced the collaboration among the different bodies of the national association.
Finally, it should be mentioned that the international Slow Food network also contributed to the co-production of this CTP, which observed with attention the movements taken by the Slow Food USA Association. In that time, the Slow Food International Association outlined the biodiversity protection as one of the three strategic targets for the period 2012-2016.
The 6th Slow Food International Congress held in Italy in 2012, launched the challenge of reaching to the “10,000 products in the Ark of Taste” on a global scale. This target, in fact, represents the relaunching of all Slow Food projects that aimed to protect biodiversity: the Ark of Taste, the Presidia and the Earth Food Markets.
The Ark of Taste is the catalogue of endangered food plants and animals that Slow Food has resolved to defend against the agriculture industry. Slow Food USA has been contributing to this project for almost 15 years, since 2003 when the network launched the “Heritage Turkey project”. Subsequently, Slow Food USA conducted several biodiversity projects, such as the “Renewing America’s Food Traditions” (RAFT), coordinated by the initiative from 2003 to 2010, which has been the first related event mentioned by the respondent.
For a long time, many Slow Food members have dedicated much (free) time and (volunteering) efforts to promote heritage foods and stimulating the recovery of regional unique varieties around the country, such as the Navajo-Churro Sheep Presidium, a Navajo food community that the interviewee worked with. As a result of this intense work, Slow Food USA placed 129 food varieties on the Global “Ark of Taste” Catalogue in In 2009 , which has been considered a milestone within the organization.
The Ark of Taste works were coordinated by a national Ark of Taste committee, which was in charge of establishing the criteria for special products to candidate to the international catalog. All these endeavours ceased in 2012, when the Ark of Taste committee was cancelled by the new Slow Food USA directors.
The direction aimed to give more autonomy to each local chapters, which were working with local heritage and native foods. However, this decision caused much rejection and several relevant leaders of Slow Food USA, including the members of such Ark of Taste committee, who openly regretted and criticized such decision. They were perceived that the organization was moving away from heritage protection and biodiversity work by adopting a political approach.
Another related event connects to the national Slow Food Leadership Conference hosted in 2013 in New Orleans (Louisiana, USA). The theme of the conference was “Connecting Food Communities,” with a renewed emphasis on connecting with local food networks throughout the United States. Besides, during this national conference, the Ark of Taste national committee celebrated a meeting. Members aimed to increase the list of Ark of Taste products. Altogether with the re-establishment of the Ark of Taste projects, the gathering serves to launch the national edible education project.
As a result of the good performance of Slow Food USA, in 2016 edition of Terra Madre-Salone del Gusto, all Slow Food chapters were able to participate with two delegates to this biennial gathering of Slow Food’s international community. In September 2016, over 300 delegates from the USA gathered in Turin, Italy, presenting the work performed by their local chapter or their food community.
No contestation was reported by the interviewee regarding this critical turning point. Indeed, the re-establishment of the Ark of Taste project was applauded by many associates who had been working on their own, in the local context, promoting or supporting several biodiversity initiatives.
Since 2013, the new Slow Food USA executive director and his staff reconnected with several Slow Food ex-members, who had abandoned the organization, and invited them to come back and relaunch the Ark of Taste project. While some re-joined the organization, others declined the invitation, due to the fact that they decided to work in the local context without the support of the Slow Food community. This was considered a loss of talent by the respondent:
In 2009, I finished my term being at the Ark of Taste Committee. I had done my 3 years, so I had been active and I was in contact and worked with these people on the national committee. This is how I know what this is about. There were some people that said that they didn´t need the national network, and that they would continue to do the same work on their own. They said that they are going to celebrate these foods, they are continuing with that mission of biodiversity. However, there are some Slow food chapters that have closed and that is a loss to the Ark of Taste work
This critical turning point was anticipated by those Slow Food USA practitioners that remained as active militants after the internal crisis in which the national organization was immersed for the period of 2011-2012 (as described in the previous sections). Actually, the cancellation of the Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste Committee activity was one of the motives that caused an internal crisis within the National Association.
However, the interviewee does not explicitly mention if exists the shared perception that this event means a critical turning point for most of the Slow Food USA associates, as other chapter activities proceeded normally at this time. Based on her personal long-term experience as Slow Food member and local chapter coordinator, the interviewee personally perceives that this event is a critical point in the Slow Food USA history because it redefined the unique mission of Slow Food in the effort to maintain biodiversity in agriculture system.
Some lessons have been mentioned regarding this critical turning point. The fist idea that comes up is that social initiatives and social movements like Slow Food should not lose their roots. According to the interviewee, the Slow Food movement is strongly rooted in the preservation of local biodiversity and food heritage and, thirty years later, this innovative discourse is still lead by Slow Food. She emphasizes that, despite the multitudes of local food projects, garden projects and associations that emerged at the local level, the unique initiative which connects food and biodiversity in a systemic way is Slow Food. However, as some of the most relevant spokespersons of Slow Food USA regretted, in the 2010s, the initiative suffered from a kind of “shiny object syndrome” being distracted from its core goals.
Otherwise, despite these internal conflicts, Slow Food USA has succeeded in disseminating the discourse of biodiversity preservation worldwide, for example, enhancing seed libraries in the USA:
I don't know anyone else who cares about biodiversity. Not in the way of the Slow Food system. To me that is something that we have to prevail. I know that is more obscure, now we have the seed libraries. There is something around with people who are not Slow Food but who share the same concept. All the communities are foraging seed libraries. The idea is that people harvests their seeds from their gardens and label them to an online library to collection and each year people trade their seeds. If you see a successful seed of tomato, paper, etc., if it did well in your garden, in this climate, the share with other people who want to have a successful harvesting. Because the seed companies, they have the same seed over the country, the idea is to keep local production
Second, the respondent perceives an increasing demand for autonomy and a desire of control regarding the food production and consumption channels. Even if people do not join the Slow Food movement, a network of food activists currently arises in both urban and rural cities across the United States. However, she is puzzled about the reluctance of certain people to join or acknowledge the Slow Food movement:
Even if Slow Food does not exist in my community, as a formal organization, there is still a big school garden project. But I can see that even there is people who meet Slow Food and they see that we have funds and resources for school gardens and so on, but they do not want to engage Slow Food. For reasons that I fully don't understand, I see that this movement can be divided. People are trying to do the same thing but they don't want to collaborate. They say that they can to it themselves and they do not need Slow Food
The personal experience of the interviewee, as an activist in a local chapter, permits her to draw some lessons regarding leadership in terms of dedication and abilities required to run a local initiative:
Leading a Slow Food chapter is a lot of work. It requires a lot of dedication, and people with time to be a champion. And sometimes there are people who want to be a leader chapter but they have not enough time for managing the group. And recruiting and organizing the volunteers is not so easy. So, I am not quite sure how to define what it takes but there are lots of qualities needed to make a chapter successful
Finally, the Ark of Taste project has provided extensive learning and inspiration for the engaged participants. The interviewee learned from successful experiences. In particular, she learned how a local community, through an Ark of Taste project, succeeded in helping to recover local traditions linked to a specific endangered variety of food:
I would say that the outcomes of the Ark of Taste are positive and growing. I think that a perfect example is Sebastopol Gravenstein Apple in California. This apple was imported by the Russians in north California in Sebastopol. This grown everywhere and it was very important for the community. But the apple industry unified most of the varieties of apples in US. But some Sebastopol people said: we can’t lose this apple! This apple is very important food for our community and everybody should now that. And they were very cooperative and they did some apple sauce, and apple juice, and made a big festival, and resurrected this food. So, they are model for success for cooperative development to saving an endangered food. And all of this was organized by a volunteer women and she did it for ten years. And when I met her at Terra Madre, she told me that and said me: I’ve doing this for ten years, when finish this? And I say that it was a model
I would say that Navajo-Churro lamb meat project is fairly successful. Some of the people I work with have been very good at promoting the concept of heritage breed and why they should be produced again. This was in conjunction with a global food sovereignty movement. And Slow Food USA founder’s company, Patrick Martin, is going to sell some of the meat. They have a plan to sell it online. That is very positive!
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