Sacred Groves to host Terra Madre fest in October

NEW DELHI: The magical Sacred Groves at Lawkyntang, Mawphlang known for its cultural significance and ethereal beauty will host the first ever international Indigenous Terra Madre 2015 in India showcasing traditional foods of Meghalaya in October this year.
“The festival which is being held only for the second time is coming to India for the first time,” Phrang Roy, Chairman, North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) said.
Organized for the first time in 2011 in Jokkmokk, Sweden, Indigenous Terra Madre was Slow Food’s first event dedicated entirely to indigenous people.
“The Indigenous Terra Madre 2015 will be a meeting dedicated to indigenous population from around the world. It will bring indigenous issues under a magnifying glass while also giving stake holders the opportunity to network and share knowledge,” he added.
“The five-day event will see indigenous communities working in close proximity with North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society, the Government of Meghalaya, the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty and Slow Food along with partner organisations and individuals,” Roy said.
Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us. Slow Food believes food is tied to many other aspects of life, including culture, politics, agriculture and the environment. Through our food choices we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced and distributed, and as a result bring about great change.
Terra Madre, meanwhile, is a network of food communities, which are groups of small-scale food producers committed to producing quality food in a responsible, sustainable way. There are more than 2,000 Terra Madre food communities around the world.
Terra Madre network was launched by the Slow Food grass roots organization.