On pigs and blogging (and report for Grundtvig)

Great to see your post Vix on pigs. I am compiling now a short report for Grundtvig on our days together. The official one will be done by Sabrina in Italian for the national agency. I am posting it here for your comments.
Geoff has sent to me and Sabrina his feedback, and we do have your forms, but I hope we can use this space to chat a bit about the out come. I see the google groups has taken off which is great as well.
This is a very dry report so do spice it up a bit!

Rather missing all our good times, though not the cold of the Convento! I am going back with my family this weekend to see a house I would like to rent there (from Isabella who had the jewelry) and I do plan to take my family to see the pigs, especially now I am so informed by Vix and her research. : )

I am still digesting our  moments, will share more creatively what I personally got out of the week together over these days.
 Wendy

Short report on Workshop on Politics of Food, Gender Roles and Environmental Change held October 17 to 24 2010 Bolsena, Italy

The workshop was held in the unique environment of a 17 century restored Convento where participants were able to learn and enjoy the surrounding country with opportunities to visit slow food restaurants, farms and small food producers. The workshop offered both a formal learning as well as participatory hands on experience including cooking, open dialogues and exchange held around the fire place, outside in the garden, in the work stations and over many enjoyable meals.

It was a widely diverse group made up of different countries, ages, experiences and education levels. Despite differences, everyone was very collaborative and friendly, though some of the participants experienced language difficulties, this did not stop them from learning and enjoying the events. Participants were able to compare the diversity of their experiences embedded within the workshops focus on the world wide dynamic of globalization environmental change and food security. In the stories shared there was an interesting contrast of different cultures of food and gender relations.

The blog (Gender and Food Politics in Europe) that was set up during the Workshop underlines the importance not only of the information shared by speakers on EU policy on food, US and trade regimes but also the hands-on activities of food preparation, particularly Signora Teresa who showed the group pasta making. The gender politics of the kitchen was noted as well, as the men chefs were not as able to share knowledge as the women. The ICT component including group blogging pictures on face book and skype interview with Raj Patel was another key contribution to learning and communication of the workshop. As was the sense of history of the place in visits to museums and talks given on matriarchy and ecofeminism as part and parcel of the global politics of food, rise of agribusiness and about the commodification of food in food industry. 

There were several outcomes of the groups learning time together:

• The blog allowed for all participants to share their thoughts, and experiences, as well as pictures of all the food and sights.
• A facebook page was set up to share mostly pictures of the workshop
• A google group was set up to continue exploring the multiple links between food, gender and environment as one step on the way to forming a network engaged in food, gender and environment to understand how to encourage greater awareness of ‘slow food’, traditional cuisine and how to appreciate the importance of women’s roles in food production and culture
• The experiences of the workshop will feed directly into another Grundtvig workshop to be hosted in Berlin on meal security and the culture of food in February 2011.
• Through sharing and networking on the blog the group aims to share more information, both receipes for the Berlin meeting and information on what is happening politically around food and how to act in solidarity with women living in very harsh conditions in former Soviet Union where food prices are high and many people go now to food banks (in Estonia for example) and trade within Europe is not favourable (for example Moldavian wine). It will also be important to continue sharing the shifts in gender roles and new methods for research such as in the UK which is redefining what is the poverty line based on people themselves undertaking the research.
• One follow up was suggested between participants from Poland and Hungary that would discuss how to educate children in healthy food and lifestyles
• The researchers among the group agreed to explore how to look at engendering agriculture in the EU and raise awareness of food prices speculation. Some of the participants will investigate how to design a research project which gender audits (using gender budgeting methodology) and applies the idea of meal security proposed by one of the participants from Germany  as well as connecting research with advocacy at the European and global level. 

The overall evaluation of the participants underlined that the experience was very positive, especially the hospitality and beauty of the place and deliciousness of the food!