‘It’s about changing the food system,’ says Chin Chin Uy Jr., one of the movement’s leaders in the country. ‘It upholds the dignity of food producers and sources.’
How do you know that a public event is very important to a high-ranking government official? When said official flies in to attend it from another part of the country and flies right back out.
That’s exactly what Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco did at the recent “Terra Madre Visayas 2024 Slow Food Festival,” a five-day event participated in by organic farmers, slow food activists, chefs, cooks, scientists, and micro enterprises from Negros and nearby provinces. She planed in at Silay airport, made her way to Bacolod City, delivered a speech, checked out the festival grounds and chitchatted with some participants, and then travelled back to the airport for her flight out from Negros.
“A milestone that underscores the importance of food, ensures the integrity of food systems, and upholds the dignity of food producers and sources at the cornerstone of our culture and heritage,” she noted in her keynote address.
The milestone? The Philippine hosting of the Terra Madre Asia-Pacific 2025 Slow Food Festival, which Frasco announced in her speech. This was the big reason the Visayas festival was a must-attend for her even if it was a whirlwind that required her to literally fly in and out within a few breathless hours.
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It was also Frasco who pushed for the Philippines to host the first regional slow food festival in Asia-Pacific next year. The event was originally planned for 2027 but when she heard that the country had the biggest delegation of 100 participants, from both government and the private sector, and the most active booth at the Terra Madre global festival in Turin, Italy in September, she said, “Why wait for 2027? Let’s do it next year!”
The tourism chief believes the event will help achieve the current administration’s major goal of becoming the next major food tourism destination in the region.
Slow Food Festival 2025
Now preps for this international slow food festival will have to be fast tracked. After 2025, Terra Madre Asia-Pacific will alternate with the mother global festival in Italy as biannual events.
That shouldn’t be a problem for the local slow food community, which will be working on the project. “The Philippine slow food movement is at the top in Asia,” declares Ramon “Chin Chin” Uy Jr., one of the movement’s prime movers in the country. “We’re the most active because we have a vibrant community. We cooperate with one another and everybody works together.”
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In the Visayas alone, the slow food movement counts thousands of organic farmers and 16 communities across the region, including Capiz, Boracay, Panay, Cebu, and Dumaguete. There are more communities in Luzon as far north as the Cordilleras. The movement has been around in the Philippines since 2010, founded by Chin Chin together with fellow food activists Margarita Fores, Lynn Gamboa, and Mara Pardo de Tavera.
Some of the food sold at the festival grounds beside the provincial capitol. Terra Madre Visayas 2024 Slow Food Festival featured talks, regional and heritage food, including a special twist on the traditional puso (rice wrapped in banana leaves).
That much is clear at Terra Madre Visayas. In only its second year, the local festival has gathered the full and enthusiastic support of all stakeholders in the industry. Aside from the Department of Tourism, the government is represented by the City Government of Bacolod, the Provincial Government of Negros Occidental, and the National Commission for Culture & the Arts. From the private sector come Slow Food International and Slow Food Negros, whose participation in the recent festival came in the form of dozens of trade booths showcasing local and sustainable products and a packed schedule of talks, discussions, and workshops covering five whole days.
A movement from Rome to the world
In his speech prior to Frasco’s address, Bacolod Mayor Albee Benitez recounted his first encounter with slow food. “Is it the opposite of fast food?” he recalled asking. His ignorance, he said, “was greeted with laughter.” It didn’t take long for him to get a full understanding of what slow food is. And no, it’s not about the length of time it takes to cook or prepare a dish.
“It’s not just curating the food,” he noted. “It’s also being responsible citizens in procuring or getting the ingredients for the food. It’s not just about good-tasting food. It’s also about protecting and sustaining the environment.”
Turns out the mayor wasn’t off the mark with his initial thoughts about slow food. The movement got its start, in 1986, right at the first McDonalds in Rome, stationed at the famous tourist destination Spanish Steps. As a sign of protest, five friends, all locals, drank wine and ate their traditional food in front of the store.
“Italians are very proud and protective of their food culture,” Chin Chin notes. “They didn’t want it to disappear because of the western diet and industrialization.” The protest spurred the five Italians to start the slow food movement.
It’s about changing the food system, says the 41-year-old Bacolodnon businessman who currently sits in the council at Slow Food International and on the Board of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)-Organics International, a membership-based organization working to bring true sustainability to agriculture across the globe. “We don’t want the more industrialized food system of fast food, industrialization, using chemicals. We want everyone to have access to good, clean, and fair food.”
Good means good for the environment, for the people, for the health, for the community, for everyone.
Clean means absolutely no chemicals and anything artificial used in the whole production process, from growing the vegetables, fruits, and meats to preparing every dish and drink including the seasonings and flavorings.
Fair means fair for the farmers and for the consumers in terms of income and prices, respectively.
Slow food is not just organic farming. It’s the entire food production process, from farming and selling to cooking and eating. It’s not just the kitchen but the whole food ecosystem and its goal is to move things forward. Yes, forward; not back to the pre-industrialization era.
“It was only in the 1960s when we started industrializing our food systems,” Chin Chin states. “It’s only been 50 years but look at the destruction it has brought to the environment. It made people sick, because of our food, and then ang farmers natin mahirap. For us industrialization is a big failure.”
It’s not even about sustainability, Chin Chin adds. “We saw the mistakes of the past 50 years, so we have to move to not even a more sustainable system, but to a regenerative system. If you sustain something you’re just sustaining it, but if you regenerate, you make something better than what it was.”
Farmers are the stars
At the heart of that regenerative system are the farmers. “They are the stars of slow food,” Chin Chin notes. “We believe they are the most neglected in society, so we give them a platform where they are the stars.”
That platform comes in the form of trade festivals like Terra Madre and regular markets like the Bacolod Earth Market and the Salcedo Market in Makati, where farmers can sell their produce directly to consumers, eliminating the middlemen that eat up a big portion of the farmers’ income while at the same time jacking up the prices of the goods for buyers.
Some local slow food communities and champions, like Chin Chin’s own Fresh Start store in Bacolod, also provide more permanent outlets. In fact, Fresh Start used to be located inside a mall until the pandemic shut operations down. It moved to its own permanent place when the economy reopened.
The slow food movement is also big on the country’s heritage food. This is where chefs and restaurateurs come in. “For us, the vision is to preserve and promote the traditional food of Negros island,” notes Chin Chin, whose own restaurant, Lanai, has an entirely slow food menu.
At the Terra Madre Visayas, festival goers were treated to several of these heritage food items including a special twist on the traditional puso (rice wrapped in banana leaves) by a family in Capiz. The heirloom recipe uses nipa wine to cook the rice in that gives it a truly unique savory sweet-tangy taste. The nipa sap is also harvested and then fermented with heat to keep it sweet. This process takes hours and puts the slow in slow food. But the result is fantastic. With its golden brown color and sticky texture, it looks and tastes like bico very lightly peppered with very light spice.
So, it’s not true that organic food is not delicious. “Actually, chemically produced food is not delicious. Walang lasa, unless they put MSG or artificial flavoring, which tricks your brain into thinking it’s delicious.”
That said, the great taste of organic food is more of a cherry on top. “The end-goal is every Bacolodnon, every Negrense, every Filipino will have access to good, clean, fair food that’s affordable and accessible to everyone, not just the rich,” Chin China enthuses. “At the end of the day, we don’t want to put chemicals in our body, and at the same time we want to preserve our food traditions.”
This is why the slow food movement should be very important not just to government officials like Secretary Frasco but to every Juan and Juana all over the country.
