references
EDUCATION
ited States Un
LEARNING ON QUILLISASCUT FARM
BRINGING TERRA MADRE HOME
EDUCATION
Amy Grondin is a fisherwoman in southeast Alaska. In October 2008, she traveled to Turin, Italy, for the international Terra Madre gathering of food communities that support Slow Food’s message of good, clean and fair food. During the four-day meeting, Amy connected with two other food producers dedicated to sustainable agriculture and biodiversity: Kim Bast, a chef and goat farmer from Washington State, and Lora Lea Misterly, a cheesemaker and co-owner of the Quillisascut goat farm in Rice, Washington. A friendship among Amy, Kim and Lora Lea was formed out of their shared appreciation of “the simple pleasures of the table” and those responsible for providing those pleasures. Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA, had asked the American delegates to find ways to take home the message of Terra Madre and bring support to the growing Slow Food youth programs. Lora Lea took his suggestion to heart and proposed to Amy and Kim a week-long class on the Quillisascut Farm, where Lora Lea and her husband Rick have farmed for 30 years, during which they would share the lessons they had all learned as Slow Food members and food producers. The August 2009 workshop immersed 12 students aged between 18 and 29 in the farm experience. They followed the daily agricultural work required to bring food from farm to table, including caring for honeybees and making goat cheese. They learned about the various roles in a food community and how to make choices that support other members of that community. They prepared dinner from food they had harvested each day and held discussions about that day’s work, GMOs, biodiversity and the meaning of good, clean and fair. Through these discussions the students formed a community of their own, tethered to their own goals, ideas and respect for each other, and their trust in each other grew every day through the shared experience of farm work. The Quillisascut Farm School Workshop was funded by the DeVlieg Family Foundation and many Slow Food chapters in Washington State, which provided scholarships to young members including Danny Barksdale, an instructor at FareStart (a food training and placement program for the disadvantaged) and Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley, a University of Washington student and farm apprentice. In November they presented their experience at Quillisascut at a dinner at the FareStart facility to raise scholarship funds for the 2010 Slow Food Youth Workshop.
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HTTP://QUILLISASCUT.NING.COM
