From the south of Italy to the south of the world

Of Tuscan origin, Barbara Nappini is the first woman to have been elected president of Slow Food Italy – at the organization’s Tenth National Congress in Genoa. Following in the footsteps of Carlo Petrini, the founder of the International Slow Food movement, Nappini is likewise founder of the association Il Grano e le Rose di Arezzo (in 2010) – an organization which is partly inspired by the Bread and Roses campaign and which advocates for sustainable and responsible lifestyles. In her presidential role, she is guided by a glocal vision and represents the south of Italy and what that region teaches the rest of Europe and the world at large in terms of approaches to food and healthy eating habits and the value of coming together as a collective, enjoying a slowing down, and getting back to basics as well as a focus on a “less” that is, in reality, “more.”

With a mindset set on “a world in which all people can access and enjoy food that is good for them, good for those who grow it and good for the planet” and an approach “based on a concept of food that is defined by three interconnected principles: good, clean, and fair,” in Slow Food, storytelling also becomes an important method to spread the word (“What is not told does not exist. Tell the stories, and they exist!”). Nappini’s own story is one of hope and aspirations, trial and error, and ultimate successes. She has boldly ventured into different chapters and embarked on new life paths, and talks of life’s many twists and turns, explaining that she “actually had two lives.” Her first decisive chapter was the period until 2010 when she lived in an international group or community. While it was “very challenging, living in an international context” was “fun and comfortable.”

With a background in the Florentine fashion industry, Nappini eventually “felt uncomfortable with this comfort.” Her second life began in 2010 when she continued the research journey that she had already initiated – within herself.

Aware of the impact her own lifestyle choices thus far had had on the planet and the ecosystem, she needed a change and to engage in new thoughts and endeavors. She left Florence and moved to a stone house on top of a hill with 3 hectares of land around it. Set on working the land, she and her family started a small organic farm with the intention of becoming farmers “as absolute beginners.” While this proved hard to sustain and they faced difficulties relating to, for example, generational change, mechanization, and crop maintenance on hilly terraces, Nappini acknowledges how important it was not to be successful and that it was a good learning experience. In 2012, she first connected with the Slow Food Association in Italy and became a member and activist; likewise engaging in a spiritual awakening. Her personal research had become collective, and from the concrete focus on bread and grain as main staple foods, Nappini quickly embraced the Slow Food movement, which was similar in approach. Her background in farming provided invaluable insights and has helped her navigate her important role. She promotes food as a “concrete thing” and highlights the connection between food and “all the rest of human life” – including “science, identity, and dignity of knowledge, the environment, religion, philosophy.” She looks at food and crop cultivation, access to and distribution of resources from a holistic point of view.

With regard to Italy and the Mediterranean culture, southern Europeans are natural survivors who remain resilient, resourceful, and ultimately hopeful. Nappini agrees that countries like Italy show the way to healthier collective eating and positive social interaction. She praises Carlo Petrini’s overall vision and deems him “so farsighted in the 1980s.” His movement came as a reaction to the fast-food model that was “not only a restaurant model but a cultural model” and that triggered the fast food-fast life conundrum. Nappini elaborates:

You change the time of human life into the time of industry. There are no more shared meals; you must perform, and you must be on the run. You cannot lose time on buying, choosing, preparing, and sharing food. What was impactful to me was this vision – so clear.

With reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, it clearly and violently revealed the flaws in systems which were “not working. At the moment when we increasingly needed to be safe, it expressed all its limits.” Quoting from David Quammen’s 2012 book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, she says, “Viruses are necessary and natural. It is not viruses that make our societies vulnerable, but our activities.” According to Nappini, we need to honestly say things as they are and not as we would like them to be: “There is a need to re-equilibrate and give back balance to all the anthropic activities that destroy our natural environment. The core thing is about the way we produce and the way we consume.”

In Slow Food, the focus is on the transition from animal consumption to a plant- and protein-based diet. A scientifically attuned Nappini says:

Hunger on the planet is not a matter of scarcity but it is a matter of poverty... And we know from the Food and Agriculture statistical data that we are producing so much more food than the number of people. We waste one third of the food produced and could feed four times the people without access.

She adds:

We do not have a problem of maximizing production, but we have a problem of distribution and access in terms of money. People who starve do so because they are poor, not because there is no food. It is a matter of distribution – it is about the unfairness of our systems.

At the Slow Food 8th International Congress in Pollenzo in July this year, then-departing President Petrini declared:

There’s a need for the direction, creativity and intuition of a new team capable of interpreting our present situation, outlining a trajectory and achieving our future goals, which at their core, remain the same: to guarantee good, clean and fair food for all.

Are we on track to achieving some of these goals? Nappini emphasizes:

We are facing an urgency and don’t have more time. Food today is a matter of human rights. It is very clear to me. At the same time, I am very optimistic, and the speech I delivered on my election day was called “Faith and Hope,” I was quoting Goethe. Both are necessary but they are not blind optimism.

In her view, we need to be brave enough to explore unknown paths, embrace new thoughts and a new language, and with that a new way of thinking – as long as it leads us to the truth.

In closing, Nappini summarises her attitude to life and the movement, with “slow food radicals” leading the way – and her words become universal truths to draw from: “It is just about doing what is fair and right any time – in small decision like in big ones. I could never be competitive or try to win someone else.” She promotes the Terramadre Salone del Gusto 2022, with an outlook on healthy eating and food as a generator for positive social change and interaction, and with a theme of “regeneration,” as the next important key event and says it has to become unforgettable.

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Images provided by Barbara Nappini