Italiano
Good, clean and… Ferrarelle?
The advertisment of Ferrarelle on the guide Osterie d'Italia by Slow Food is coherent with some behaviours of the association? Is it possible to talk about it without being hit by
First things first: I have absolutely nothing against Ferrarelle which produces good mineral water that with a little less residue would be perfect. Nor do wish to stigmatize sponsorship that, above all in a sector in crisis like publishing, is absolutely necessary to make ends meet. All I wish to observe is simply that if an association like Slow Food, which has as its battle cry “good, clean and right” and “zero kilometers” and is a strong supporter of environmental sustainability in food and agricultural production, accepts Ferrarelle as a sponsor for its Guide to Restaurants in Italy then something is not right.
This because not only is Ferrarelle mineral water sold in plastic bottles that are difficult to recycle but the water is distributed throughout Italy and other countries using trucks that are not exactly environmentally friendly. While this is obviously not a crime, it is certainly not consistent with the association’s battle cries. Is it possible that because of its importance and the good things it does, Slow Food believes that whatever it does is positive because it supports the cause? If it is then, for me, then it’s a bit of a stretch. This becomes even more evident when, as often occurs, many leading members of Slow Food criticize others for doing things that, in the end, the association itself does. But that is not all because there are other things that Slow Food does that can be defined as, to be kind, “inconsistent”.
For example, I do not believe I have ever read anything about cooperatives in Slow Food’s publication. And while it is true that there are many shady food and agricultural cooperatives, in the wine sector cooperatives represent 58% of national production and thus they deserve proper attention. And this especially when you take into account that decisions made by a big cooperatives will have a major effect on the production of thousands of farmers. For example, if a leading cooperative decides to launch an “organic” line of wines, incentivizing its suppliers with higher prices for products that follow particular protocols, this would have positive repercussions on thousands of hectares of land and the final product would thus be good for the environment. And since this would also be in line with Slow Food’s guiding principles, the question arises of why they don’t pay more attention to such things. Then there is the area of scientific research which in agriculture and winemaking has produced rootstocks that can eliminate the need for irrigation as well as modified varietals to be resistant to botrytis and thus reduce the need for chemical treatments in the vineyard by up to 80%. And all this could revolutionize international winemaking in the near future.
So why isn’t all this not at the center of attention rather than lamenting the ‘way things used to be’. Why can’t there be a calm and balanced discussion, an analysis, of the pros and cons of such advances?
These are concrete, important and incisive issues and not battle cries aimed at being ‘politically correct’ and should be dealt with without hypocrisy or verbal balancing acts.
