CHINA IS READY TO HOST THE SLOW FOOD WORLD CONFERENCE FROM SEPTEMBER 29TH TO OCTOBER 1ST IN CHENGDU CITY. PIERO AND QIAO LING, COORDINATOR AND PRESIDENT OF SLOW FOOD CHINA, FOUNDED IN 2015, TALKED TO WINENEWS

Slow Food landed in China in January 2015, and within a very short time has managed to establish a solid organization that it is now ready to host, for the first time, the World Conference of the Association founded by Carlo Petrini, from September 29th to October 1st, 2017 in the city of Chengdu City, Sichuan Province.
There will be 400 delegates from 90 different countries to determine the guidelines that Slow Food will follow over the next four years. It is an important milestone for Slow Food Great China whose president, Madame Qiao Ling, just a few days ago met with Italian premier Paolo Gentiloni on his trip to China sealing confirming a close cultural relationship between the two countries. China plays a key role in the food system, which Slow Food considers essential to saving the planet's agro-food biodiversity and playing a crucial role in major global issues such as climate change, of which agriculture is an important aspect.
The first big showcase where Chinese farmers and their products, saved from extinction were able to tell about the extraordinary agricultural biodiversity of the largest country in Asia, was at the recent Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy. There, WineNews met Piero and Qiao Ling, coordinator and president of Slow Food China.
“In Italy, so far we only know low-quality Chinese products”, said Piero Ling, coordinator of Slow Food China, and we are pleased that with the help of all of our small producers and associations, we can open a new road, and let the world know about these small productions. It is a little known part of China, but especially in the South of the country, we have incredible biodiversity”.

How did you get Slow Food to China, and what are its future projects?
“I found Slow Food thanks to Italian activists”, explained Qiao Ling, president of Slow Food China , “who introduced me to the organization and the Slow Food project, of which I of course share all their ideas. That’s how we started out, but we are still in the developing stages, as we do not have a definitive structure as yet, at least not officially. There is a lot of enthusiasm , but we have no idea how many members there really are. There is certainly a huge potential for Slow Food in China, which is an enormous and wealthy country. We haven’t had much damage because of intensive agriculture and there are so many areas that have not been touched by the phenomenon”, concluded Qiao Ling, “where food is still handled in the traditional way. So, it's not too late to preserve our agricultural culture; we need to be optimistic and now is the right time to focus on Slow Food's ideas, also in China.”