“SQUISITO!” GOES INTERNATIONAL WITH ITS “ANTIDRUG FOOD” AREA SPONSORED BY THE UN

The drug problem is a difficult one to eradicate in countries in which it also represents a fundamental source of income for a large part of the population. But there are organizations in different parts of the world that are working to modify these bad practices by turning cocaine and opium producing fields into areas dedicated to more useful, organic and, above-all, legal forms of agriculture. The UN has been collaborating for years with associations that are concerned with promoting programs against illicit cultivation.
And in the upcoming edition of Squisito! (exhibition to be held next September at the community of San Partignano), the UN will be financing a space dedicated to this innovative reality that pushes for the move to cacao, coffee, and palm production, and away from coca and poppy plantations. It is an experiment, but with the involvement of associations like Acciòn Social or the social cooperative Oro Verde, it could open the doors to a whole new world.
A possibility to enter into new markets for these small agricultural organizations and to discover new quality products for our dinner tables. The “Antidrug food” area at the San Partignano exhibition, will be organized by Unodc (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) will be calling cultivators of South America as this year’s protagonists. Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela, primarily, will demonstrate the types of products that can be bought at the Squisito! exposition. For a few examples, there will be tropical honey produced by the Apiculturists Union of Cochabamba Tropic, coffee from Cosurca, the camu camu from Bolivia (a fruit with a particularly high Vitamin C content), various types of cacao, palm hearts, hot chilies, beans and gum.
The Squisito! expo (www.squisito.org) is the perfect place to offer visibility in Europe to these producers who are looking to create a new future far from poverty and drugs. The project is part of the vision of a world that is desired by the community for recovering drug addicts San Patrignano and Terra Madre, the Slow Food exposition that supports local food communities from all over the world and the defense of these small productive units, which now risk extinction in the face of a suffocating and ferocious globalization of the markets. San Partignano is, among other things, a food community and will also be participating at the grand Terra Madre convention in Turin form October 26 - 30, 2006.
This participation in the Slow Food event will be presented at Squisito! on September 23rd. It will be a unique occasion that combines San Patrignano, Slow Food, and the food artisans around the world who risk extinction.