Malte growing on the slopes of Italy’s Etna volcano, rare sariolo cacao from Venezuela, red rice from China and Ocasa corn from Mexico. These are just a few of the endangered foods that BBC journalist Dan Saladino believes are more than just a source of food and income.
They are the culmination of centuries of invention, imagination and wisdom of generations of farmers and cooks, developed by our forefathers over thousands of years, but this rich diversity of foods is slowly being lost in the mill of time.
In the book ‘Eating to Extension’, Dean Saladino has written about his experiences working with people who grow and cook unique foods in different parts of the world that are now endangered.
Saladino warns that the current system of food production is contributing to the destruction of the earth.
Dan Saladino discusses the threats to the food treasury and the steps needed to protect this diversity from extinction.
This interesting conversation will also help you look at your next plate of food in a whole new way.
For the first program I went to Sicily and I expected to present the celebration of the harvest of Malta. My family is also from Sicily and I knew that Malta had a strong influence on the island’s culture and identity.
But when I spoke to traditional malt farmers, they said they were harvesting their last crop as the demand for imported malt has increased and it has become difficult for small farmers to operate.
Did you come up with the idea for your book during that time?
In a town called Lintini in Sicily, I was invited to dine where the same traditional malts were used in every dish, and I met a man from northern Italy who was one of the founders of the ‘slow food movement’. was one of
He told me that these malts, grown on the slopes of the Etna volcano in Sicily, will be added to the endangered food list.
Today there are 5,500 items from 150 countries in this list. This is where my interest in this subject arose.
Q: The book presented food not just as a source of nutrition, but as a story of innovation and mastery over years and generations, which I found very interesting. What do they represent to you?
Yen Saladino: Food is a wonderful mirror to understand the world. The book tells the story of the origin of these dishes, how the food kept the local population alive in the harsh land conditions and how the relationship with food influenced the identity and culture of these peoples.
So I looked at food from the point of view of innovation, science, culture, the quest for survival because it represents all of those things.
An inspiring portrait in the book is that of Kerry Fowler, the scientist who envisioned the Svalbard World Seed Bank in Arctic Norway. Fowler says that most of the people who come to this seed bank leave in tears and say that these seeds are the result of the hard work of your ancestors and mine. Do you view food in the same spiritual way?
This is my favorite saying in this book. Seeds from all over the world have been brought to the Svalbard Bank, and it is this wide variety that inspires so many.
These seeds represent a cumulative history of 12,000 years of cultivation, by people who passed these seeds down from generation to generation.
This is our legacy, because we depend on this diversity born over thousands of years but few people know these stories.
We see the best examples of human imagination and imagination in pictures, statues, and cathedrals, but we must also look at endangered foods in the same way.
Can you give us an idea of how much food diversity the world has lost today?
It is difficult to give such statistics. That’s why the Svalbard Seed Bank exists to measure food diversity.
Svalbard has thousands of seed samples for rice and other crops. For example, there are 20,000 seeds of different varieties of wheat alone, but only 10 varieties are recommended to farmers in Europe that are genetically similar.
The world has become dependent on a very small amount of crops and around nine staple crops are grown worldwide while 50% of calories are obtained from just three commodities, wheat, rice and maize.
At the beginning of the book, the famous American biologist Rachel Carson writes a sentence that nature created diversity but humans tried to simplify this diversity. And to you, we live in a world of homogeneity.
Rachel Carson became famous for warning against the use of pesticides in her book ‘Silent Spring’. She was a marine biologist and recognized the shared value of all things.
She wanted people to understand the beauty and necessity in the complexity of nature, but it is human nature to want to see nature in a simple way.
Many people say that my diet is more diverse than my ancestors, I go to the supermarket and can buy food grown all over the world.
But the problem is that food is becoming more and more the same all over the world like clothes are becoming more and more the same. For example, there are 20,000 varieties of bananas, but we only eat one variety.
Why is it so important to protect a diverse diet from extinction?
In the second half of the 20th century, the food problem was thought to have been solved by technological solutions, including new irrigation canal systems, chemical fertilizers, but we now know that these food systems We have paid a heavy price because of the emission of greenhouse gases that have adversely affected the earth’s environment.
I think we have to accept that science and technology work to a degree but they also create problems. The first benefit of diversity conservation would be that future solutions to protect crops from disease or survive rising temperatures could be discovered with the help of food genetic diversity.
In your book you have also presented health as a point.
DAN SALADINO: Recent science on nutrition emphasizes that humanity evolved as a result of a diverse diet. We also need a varied diet for the health of our gut bacteria.
The third reason, just as important to me, is do we want to live on an earth where human experiences are becoming limited and homogenized?
In your book, you say that the current system of food production is contributing to the destruction of the earth. Can you explain that?
During the 20th century there were many changes in agriculture, for example synthetic fertilizers were developed.
This type of farming is causing biodiversity loss worldwide, polluting land, water bodies and rivers, and therefore I believe the current system of food production has a high cost.
On the positive side, famines have decreased and the world’s population has doubled since 1970, but we cannot live like this, even the founders of the Green Revolution, such as Norman Borlaug, now agree on this point.
Borlaug says that the system is short-lived and only gave us time to develop a long-term strategy. And I think we’ve reached a point where the greatest minds in science and food production are thinking about creating a food production system that is closer to nature, which is better for our health and the health of the planet. No side effects.
Let’s talk about some examples of foods that are at risk in your book, such as Oloton corn from Mexico.
Corn is a great example of a versatile food. When other malic experts surveyed this area of Mexico in the 1970s, they found an unusual corn plant that was quite tall and had aerial roots. This maize had been cultivated by the local population for many generations at high altitudes on land that was not considered suitable for agriculture.
In the last three to four years, with the help of technology, it has been found that this corn contains bacteria that help to convert the amount of nitrogen.
So this corn is an example of how a crop can be grown without artificial fertilizers, and the production of fertilizers also causes the burning of vast amounts of fuel. This is a story that tells us how a diverse diet can contribute to food security.
In your book, you also give the example of Venezuela’s Seriolo Cocoa.
When I went to Venezuela, I met a woman named Maria Fernanda who was trying to save him.
The first cacao to reach Europe was from Venezuela, which changed the taste of the world.
But with the development of the oil industry in the 20th century, investment in Sri Lankan cocoa stopped and farmers lost money, wiping out this genetic diversity.
Maria Fernanda then embarked on a mission to revive the skills, traditions and genetics needed to produce this breed of cocoa.
He started working with farmers to make cocoa into chocolate to earn more money.
And the taste of this chocolate is different?
In Europe, this cocoa was appreciated because it was less bitter. Sugar is added to chocolate today, but sariolo cocoa has always had a rich, unique flavor.
How urgent is the need to save such food to combat climate change?
In his book, a coffee story is told about how in 2014, several Arabica varieties were affected by a fungus.
The lesson learned from this was how weak the two varieties were and the solution was that coffee cultivation should be diversified.
And this is an example of how the challenge of climate change can be tackled.
In the book, you have discussed how such food can be saved and you have suggested two solutions, the first of which is to solve the problem of subsidies to the agricultural sector. How big a problem is this?
I don’t say that the 30+ foods I mention in the book can feed the world, but I do say that we need multiple farming systems.
Yes, technology is important but we have to create a system where diversity can also thrive.
And that’s hard to do because behind the current system are billions of dollars in agricultural subsidies that protect the three staple crops I mentioned earlier.
We have to use our imagination and imagination when we think of investing in food production.
There are examples in the book that have hidden huge benefits, but we can’t get to those secrets unless we invest in them.
You have invited people to think like an ‘event’, what does that mean?
I first told the story of the Hades who were the hunters of the region where man was born in Africa.
Their diet was quite diverse, including about 800 plant and animal species.
They know how important diversity is and also that they survived because they had a deep knowledge of nature.
Like Hades, we may never become hunters, but we can certainly be inspired by them and form a strong relationship with nature so that we know how much we depend on nature.
Hades knew this and we must also understand this.
What do you think readers should keep in mind when they start cooking or sit down to a plate of food?
DAN SALADINO: Whatever ingredients you’re using, I would invite you to stop for a moment and think that there’s a story behind them, thousands of years old, of the farmers who made it possible. That it reaches your plate. It is important to know this date.
I would also invite them to buy and experience a new variety of the same thing with a fresh eye on another occasion.
And I would invite you to connect with the people who are responsible for growing your food.
In my book, I give the example of a 70-year-old Chinese farmer who grows a rare red rice.
When I asked him how he was going to sell it, he took his phone out of his pocket and showed me how he was in touch with buyers in Beijing.
With modern technology, it is possible to connect with farmers and persuade them to switch to a diversified diet.