Crisis is boosting 'Slow Food' movement

The Slow Food movement's global campaign for "good, clean and fair" food is receiving a boost from the economic crisis, its founder Carlo Petrini said on Friday. "Society is all the more receptive to our arguments, now that we are facing a triple crisis: financial, environmental and energetic," Petrini told AFP on the sidelines of the Euro Gusto food fair in western France. "We consume a lot more energy than we produce, and that is especially problematic when it comes to food," argued the Italian, who was warmly welcomed on the stalls vaunting rare varieties of farm produce, from cabbage to saffron. "Human greed has destroyed our soil fertility, water, biodiversity. The Earth is not an infinite resource," he warned. "We need to strengthen the true drivers of sustainable farming, small and medium-sized farmers." Founded in 1986, Petrini's movement is headquartered in the northwestern Italian region of Piedmont, and has signed up some 100,000 people in more than 160 countries. It aims to educate people about traditional and wholesome means of production and defend biodiversity in food supply. Petrini argues that the key to changing the way we produce food is through "glocal" action -- linking up local initiatives using technology to create a global force, the "multinationals of tomorrow." "Only at a local level can people become a force for change again, more than just passive citizens," he said.