The mountain that nourishes the city

Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th March at the Botanical Garden of Rome (free admission for the occasion): show cooking, tastings, Earth Market and the Bio Village.

How can we re-establish the vital connection between food producers and artisans and the people who need to supply them, especially in the metropolises, where the physical and conceptual distance from the countryside and the mountains is clearer? What strategies should administrations implement to allow producers, outside of large-scale distribution channels, to enhance supply chains and reach their potential customers in large cities?

These are the central themes of the second day of the Festa del BIO and MontagnaMadre , the event organized by FederBio and Slow Food Italia, with the contribution of the FAO Mountain Partnership and the Botanical Garden-La Sapienza, on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 in Rome, from 10 am to 6 pm, at the Botanical Garden , which will be open to the public for free. The program includes talks, show cooking, workshops for adults and children and the opportunity to taste organic products and buy directly from the mountain producers of the Slow Food Earth Markets from Lazio, Abruzzo, Calabria, Sicily and Emilia-Romagna. Discover the entire program at www.festadelbio.it.

The aim of the two-day event is to raise awareness among the public in Rome about the characteristics of the food we consume and its origin, very often produced not only in the great Roman countryside, but also on the heights of the Apennines. The tools to guarantee market openings to mountain producers certainly exist, from farmers' markets to the supply of organic products for school and hospital canteens, we just need to connect and promote them. On the other hand, the environment and sociality of these areas can be maintained and brought to life only by guaranteeing services to families who decide to live there and by creating concrete employment opportunities, especially for the youngest, and economic, technological and social connections with large urban centers. But not all forms of production are suitable for maintaining and enhancing the great wealth of the internal areas: intensive agriculture and large consumption of chemicals do not go hand in hand with these delicate ecosystems. Only organic agriculture and production models that encourage the transition towards agroecology can contribute to mitigating the climate and environmental crisis, with benefits not only for mountain ecosystems but also for the communities downstream.

The program for Sunday, March 30 includes the talk Food Policy in Rome: sustainable and healthy food for all at 11. In the year of the Jubilee, the food policy program undertaken by the Municipality of Rome takes on an even more important value. A compass useful for defining objectives and solutions so that everyone can have access to sustainable and healthy food. Among the initiatives of the Food Council of Rome, the citizen consultation made up of almost 150 entities, including agricultural companies, associations and the world of research, the involvement of the local community in the implementation of the Roman food policy to combat food waste and losses, support organic and agroecological agricultural production, encourage the return of direct producers to local markets, strengthen the presence of locally and ecologically produced food in the menus of restaurants and collective and school canteens. The meeting will be attended by Fabio Attorre, Director of the Botanical Garden of Rome-La Sapienza University, Barbara Nappini, President of Slow Food Italy and Maria Grazia Mammuccini, President of FederBio: Fabio Ciconte, President of the Food Council of Rome, Silvia Sinibaldi, Deputy Director of Caritas, Nicoletta Maffini, President of AssoBio, Maria Letizia Gardoni, President of Coldiretti Bio, Cecilia Marocchino, of Urban Planner FAO-ESF.

And precisely as a testimony to the possibility for young people to find a dimension of life in the internal areas, in the talk at 4 pm The future of the high lands is in the communities, among others, Miguel Acebes will speak, from the Agriturismo Tularù of Rieti and part of Slow Grains, the network that brings together farmers who guard the seeds and produce the

sustainable wheat, mills that grind stone to produce flour, artisans who make bread, pasta and baked goods. Miguel and his wife Alessandra in 2016, thanks to a call for the enhancement of the Apennines, left their jobs in the artistic field to recover their grandparents' farm. Today they grow Rieti wheat at 850 meters, in rotation with grazing for a herd of 20 cattle and in the garden they produce vegetables for the kitchen of the farmhouse, open in the summer. Together with other farms in the area they use a stone mill to grind flour for a local pasta factory and produce the breads with which they supply shops in Rieti and Rome.

Miguel will speak together with Roberto Gualandri, President of the Borghi e Sentieri della Laga association, Marta Villa, Vice President of Slow Food Trentino Alto Adige and anthropologist, holder of the first chair of Cultural Anthropology of Collective Domains and Territories of Life and Tommaso Martini, President of Slow Food Trentino Alto Adige. The latter will talk about the Alpine experience, where collective domains, where communities take care of their territory according to practices regulated by knowledge, awareness and solidarity that allow the modern recovery of ancient production formulas to regenerate the high lands.

The event is supported by “Being Organic in Eu ”, the project promoted by FederBio in collaboration with Naturland for the promotion of European organic products.