Giovanni Manfroni On November 24th, World Farmers Markets Coalition (WorldFMC) and World Union of Wholesale Markets (WUWM) participated in the Coldiretti Public Forum in Rome. Robin Moon, Richard McCarthy, and Eugenia Carrara spoke on the panel about Local Food in Global Dynamics, which focused on how covid, conflicts, and climate have a significant impact on the increase of hunger worldwide. From a geopolitical point of view, these factors have highlighted the key role of agriculture and the agri-food sector, completely underestimated until recently.
We were able to share why we believe in the value of farmers markets and their impact on local communities. Below, we’ve included some snapshots from the panel discussion.
Robin Moon, WorldFMC Academy: “Farmers markets are the linkage, connector, nexus to build population health equity, starting from local communities everywhere.”
Richard McCarthy, Provisional President of WorldFMC: “When farmers markets are managed as multi-stakeholder institutions, we open the opportunity to facilitate proximity between urban and rural, consumer and farmer — out in the open. They become a metaphor for transparency, and trust.”
Eugenia Carrara, Secretary General of WUWM: “Covid-19 showed the fragility of actual food systems. The context of the political crisis in which we live calls for an urgent transformation of food systems to ensure food security and healthy diets worldwide. To succeed, we need to stop working in silos and develop concrete ways of redesigning food systems based on values of sustainability, accessibility, and resilience. Italy is a really good model for the fresh value chain. With multiple actors, such as Coldiretti, wholesale markets, national and local governments working together to sustain a virtuous value chain from farm to fork, capable of bringing to citizens quality, accessible, and healthy diets. Italy is full of small farmers supporting quality seasonal fresh produce, supporting biodiversity and the famous Mediterranean diets – considered to be amid the healthiest diets in the world! Together we can be stronger to foster this kind of model of value chain at the EU level but also worldwide.”
We were thrilled to participate in this panel and look forward to future opportunities to collaborate with WUWM and Coldiretti.
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