The Second General Assembly of the World Farmers Markets Coalition has been a success and we are proud to have gathered together, for the second time, farmers, food producers, local food leaders and speakers from all over the world.
I want to remember here how inspiring was to open with “Fratelli Tutti Foundation” in Vatican city. A moment where we shared the role played by the farmers markets to create community, “fraternity”.
We started with the idea of being a Coalition that would bring together farmers markets around the world but the facts tell us something different. In Fact, all the relationships we are creating show us that we are emerging as an international association that will have to represent more and more local food systems: a voice for a local food system in the world that brings together farmers and consumers, countryside and city.
That’s not an easy task, to do this we are adding the missing piece in the world. There are political decisions, there are programmes and finances and in this field, we are the ones that make the action, bringing local food to the city.
In order to do that, is essential to use worldwide training tools that let to enlarge the coalition to those who work for local food systems, underling the importance of interacting with national and international institutions.
The success of the Assembly was accompanied by other important results achieved through our work on international calls for proposals. On the first of August, the second LoA signed with FAO will be operational, which aims to create a strategy and tools to promote the Coalition worldwide.
But our Coalition is one of 21 international partners engaged in a new ERASMUS TWIN – IN project whose objective is to promote the ecological and digital transition in agribusiness. A 3-year commitment that will see our community at the forefront in affirming the role of farmers markets and local food systems as a virtuous example of sustainable development and consumption.
To enlarge the capacity of our World Farmers Markets Coalition to develop projects of international cooperation in all the continents with the support of our constituency will require major efforts from all of us. But the energy we have received from our annual meeting will help us to open new roads to the future.
For this reasons we will continuing to strengthened our relations with international institutions together with nationals and locals.
Action means being in movement and the movement we have will make us bigger, closer together and never alone again.
