CAN Biotech save the world, the New York Times “Opinion”, 26th November presents opinions of well known international authorities, such as Raj Patel and Vandana Shiva on the issues of food, poverty, water, agriculture and solutions. What will drive the next Green Revolution? What are the factors that will make a difference in food production.
In a related article Professor Julian Cribb of the University of Technology Sydney writing in “Online Opinion” says “in all of human history, food has never been so cheap. The average Australian spends about half what their parents and grandparents did, in terms of disposable income, on food.”

A few weeks ago on a visit to the Swan Valley, we saw Maggie Edmonds in the throws of installing a new concept to incorporate with her existing Maggie’s Place, “The Tasting Shed”. From the 15th November it will be open every Sunday. The Tasting Shed is run along the lines of the locavore philosophy. If it is in season, grown in the region and fresh then you will find it at Maggie’s Place located next to Edgecombe Brothers. Her commitemnt to promoting small farmers/producers is well known, as she explains it is often hard to graduate from farm gate to retail. Maggie won the Rural Woman of the Year Award in 2008.

THE Desert Knowledge CRC will help to create economic opportunities for desert people, and make a demonstrable difference for remote Aboriginal communities, through the application of excellent research and training.
Some of the Desert Knowledge projects can be found at the links below.
Their bush food research projects have been underway since 2004
The desert raisin report is beautifully illustrated and written in both English and the local language of the Alyawarr people, north east of Alice Springs.

SLOW Food international president and founder Carlo Petrini encouraged Australians to create ‘a new biodiversity’ during his Sydney Opera House presentation on 18 Oct 2009. The charismatic Italian – a former radio journalist – said that while Europeans had to defend historical biodiversity, Australians had to create a diverse food heritage. ‘Let the producers create this new biodiversity,’ Petrini said. ‘Let Australians use their creativity and become the protagonists of the future, as it happened with wine, as must happen with cheese, with beer, with tomatoes, and animal breeds. In this way you can defend your identity. In this way we can defend the future to be handed over to future generations.’

Video
Carlo Petrini at the Sydney Opera House [18 Oct 2009] 120 minutes

Transcript
Full presentation transcript [English]

Join the Della France family, Slow Food Perth and some of Western Australia’s finest local producers at the second biodynamic festival in High Vale’s beautiful apple, pear and stonefruit orchard at Pickering Brook on Sunday 22 November. Cider and wine tastings, small, slow food, orchard tours and conviviality. Information.

SLOW Food Perth regrets that this event has been cancelled because of a shortage of bookings [24 Nov 2009].

FORA.tv video presentation of the filming of Building a Slow Food Nation includes Carlo Petrini’s parable on differing views of heaven and hell. This panel disscussion includes the wisdom of Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Alice Waters, Carlo Petrini and moderated by Corby Kummer.

SLOW Food in Australia has launched a public campaign to give Australian artisan cheesemakers the right to produce and consumers to eat Australian raw milk cheese. “We have an opportunity to encourage food diversity, build skills and knowledge and return opportunity to Australia’s rural heartland” said Michael Croft, the public campaign organizeer. Croft said Food Standards Australia New Zealand – the authority responsible for Australian food regulation – is to decide early in j2010 if food standards are to be changed to enable the making and sale of Australian cheese from raw milk. “We would not want to jeopardize our enviable reputation as a ‘clean food’ nation” he said. “But we already allow raw milk hard-curd cheeses from France and Italy to be imported. Why should our artisan cheesemakers be denied the right to make and market Australian cheese from our own raw milk?
Here is the link the online petition
and to a multiple signature petition.
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THE 7:30 Report, ABC Television current affairs programme, centred a story on Slow Food around the visit by Slow Food international president and founder Carlo Petrini to Australia in October. Petrini visited Perth and Sydney, to the latter as a guest of the Sydney International Food Festival. Tracey Bowden interviewed Sydney chef Alex Herbert, Michael Croft, rare animal breeds farmer, Michael Champion, Mangrove Mountain organic vegetable grower, Sarah MacMaster, Sydney school garden co-ordinator, and Carlo Petrini. Carlo was questioned about ‘what do you say to those who believe this is just an elitist movement?’. Read the full transcript from 04 November 2009.

MATT Cawood reports in the Rural Press 23 October 2009 Carlo Petrini’s views on how the law is slowly killing our food.