Shooting Stars of Thought |

Well, as predicted, the virtual Slow Food Nation content is pouring in. Want a dose of slow food instantly? Try twitter, you tube, and flickr.

Want to savor it a bit more, uh, slowly?  There’s a good deal of written content out there as well. The San Francisco Chronicle has been liveblogging parts of the event, and the slow food nation blog is also providing continual updates.  Ooh, and now there’s a SFN Wikipedia page! Gotta love the web-saavy attendees this weekend.

Me, I’m combing the content for reports from the “Food for Thought” Panels, a series of guided conversations addressing policy, health, and social issues surrounding “good, clean, and fair” food. To me, this is the most important part of Slow Food Nation–while tasting and shopping for artisinal foods and local produce is all fine and good, what really makes the event important is its ability to bring like-minded thinkers together for conversations that will hopefully lead to action, and to make those conversations open to the public, in an effort to communicate and raise awareness about issues. While I’m more than a little frustrated that the panels themselves are not being recorded and webcast (well, I have no doubt that they are being recorded, so where’s the webcast? if we’re talking about good, clean, fair food for all, why not give all of us access to the discussions?), I am happy that a lot of event participants are doing a great job of relaying the thought-provoking conversations they are privy to.

Paula Crossfield offers a summary of each of the sessions on the slow food blog. I thought her description of the World Food Crisis panel raised quite a few good points, particularly reiterating the definition given at the panel: “the result of food moving out of the hands of communities and into the hands of corporations.”

And SF Chronicle’s Cameron Scott does a particularly thorough job of summarizing the Building a New Food System panel through a multi-part live blog. Things that stick out:

California Secretary of Agriculture Kawamura reminding that “Sustainability is a three-legged stool: social justice, environmental justice, and financial sustainability.”

Andrew Kimbrell reminding that “he wants to reassert that food issues and environmental issues are the same thing. Food is the most intimate relationship we have with the environment: We eat it.”  And later: “Kimbrell says everytime we eat we choose between industrial agriculture and sustainable agriculture.”

Kimbrell also asserting several times that farming (traditional, small-scale farming, not industrial food production) as a way of life is in danger. “Wendell Berry (green food hero) told [Kimbrell] that in a single generation you lose the craft of farming. It’s a corporate crime to force so many people off lands to maximize their profits.” Also Kimbrell saying that “farming is so far on the way out that it’s not listed on the Census as an occupation.”  I was particularly surprised at that last one!

Also yesterday were a panel on “re-localizing food,” which in the words of Paula Crossfield, “criticized efficiency as the sole means to consider in agricultural policy,” and a panel on “a new, fair food system,” which focused on the human factor in our food production systems, including the need to ensure good working conditions and fair, living wages. This focused on the idea that a food system that is sustainable must include a sustainable way of life for all involved.

I also thought Alice Q. Foodie had a thought-provoking post on her experiences during day 1.

I’m looking forward to more coverage!