The challenge: preventing cultural desertification
Culture, understood as the set of values, symbols, concepts, beliefs, ideas, customs and traditions that are passed down, acquired and widely shared by a given people, is the foundation upon which the individual and collective identity of a society is shaped. And yet, in the recent race toward progress and the relentless pursuit of efficiency, we are gradually depriving society of what is essential. We have everything, without truly possessing anything in full: time, health, nutritious food, a healthy environment, identity.
A world without human biodiversity would mean a world that speaks the same language, thinks in the same way, shares the same vision and eats the same foods. It would be a world without wonder, but also without natural variety, which reflects the diversity of cultures, practices and approaches. We cannot play a symphony with a single note. Likewise, we cannot aspire to restore the highest expression of natural diversity through human uniformity.
The recent pandemic has brought reflection back to the centre of individual experience, together with a renewed appreciation for what has intrinsic rather than superficial value, and an interest in everything that can add colours and nuances to life: an inevitable return to human values and to the need to reconnect with our territory and local uniqueness.
Culture is therefore being rediscovered as a resource for individual psychological wellbeing, as well as a bond of solidarity and unity for a people, a society and a nation.
The time for restarting is now ripe, and it is essential to make the most of these lessons in order to design a future capable of enhancing and preserving culture as a genuine driver of individual, collective, territorial and economic regeneration.
Food culture, territorial culture: the value of preserving diversity
“Cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature,” states Article 1 of the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, recognising the central role played by the plurality of identities and cultures that make up humanity.
Cultural diversity includes a variety of practices, rituals, knowledge, techniques, languages, beliefs, ethnicities, religions and values: the framework around which individuals shape their thoughts and perspectives, but also the roots of natural wealth.
It is therefore not surprising that, in general, the most biologically diverse areas are also among the most culturally diverse.
The Mediterranean basin is an excellent example, as an area extraordinarily rich in both biological and cultural diversity: languages, dialects and rituals merge seamlessly with territory, landscape and nature.
Culture is also the way in which communities live, adapt, produce and transform food. Consider the tens of thousands of techniques that farming and fishing communities have developed over time to cope with natural disasters, preserve food and increase resilience: all practices that have inevitably enriched our society and the Planet.
Preserving these skills means promoting diversified agroecological systems, giving a voice and rights to marginalised groups, and protecting the income of family farmers and fishermen so that they can remain in their territories as genuine guardians of our natural and cultivated diversity.
But cultural richness also represents an extraordinary economic driver when it is fully recognised and enhanced.
With 55 UNESCO sites, countless museums, art galleries, festivals and an extraordinary number of farms sustaining its food and wine culture, Italy is an open-air museum.
Promoting mindful and responsible forms of tourism therefore becomes a tool for strengthening the country’s identity values, fostering a sense of belonging among local communities that encourages them to care for their territories and tangible and intangible heritage, while directly supporting the often small and very small businesses that sustain local culture.
Alongside tourism, the cultural and creative sectors were among the hardest hit by the crisis triggered by the pandemic and lockdowns, recording job losses ranging from 0.8% to 5.5% across OECD regions.
In Italy in particular, data show a 70% decline in revenues for the cultural and creative industries sector in 2020.
And yet, the cultural sector was also among the fastest to respond to the need for innovation and adaptation, with many public and private providers moving their content online free of charge, unlocking significant potential for complementary synergies.
This means investing in the economy of beauty: an economy capable of once again recognising the value of individuals, nurturing the bond between people and their territory, and creating communities of active, aware and responsible citizens.
Enhancing Italy’s cultural, architectural, food and wine, and landscape heritage means supporting Italian identity, strengthening the economies of small and very small enterprises, helping preserve the balance of the rich urban and rural fabric that represents the true soul of our country, and preventing depopulation and the abandonment of entire areas.
It means supporting a sector that generates 17% of our country’s GDP.
The European Strategy for Culture
Improving the cultural offer and safeguarding culture is one of Europe’s priorities. In recent years, the European Union has adopted several coordination strategies and policies aimed at strengthening the sector across Member States, which remain primarily responsible in this policy area.
Following the path set out by the 2007 European Agenda for Culture, in 2018 the Commission adopted the New European Agenda for Culture to support the evolution of the sector and outline a framework for cultural cooperation at European level.
The New Agenda is divided into three main areas — economic, social and external relations — and focuses on the positive contribution that culture makes to European society, its economy, and the international partnerships and relationships it helps to build.
The Commission firmly believes that cities and regions throughout Europe can become standard-bearers of a new form of culture-based development, making them key protagonists and ideal partners for anticipating trends and experimenting with new models of economic and social innovation.
This idea is also reflected in the Council of the European Union’s Work Plan for Culture 2019–2022, a strategic and dynamic tool for cultural cooperation that addresses policy developments and sets priorities in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
The Plan also stresses that Member States should pay particular attention to the role of culture at the local level, to the quality of architecture and to the living environment, aspects that are also being addressed through the New European Bauhaus.
The European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage also includes a series of actions relevant to cities and regions across Member States.
The proposed European initiatives focus specifically on regeneration through cultural heritage, the promotion of adaptive reuse of historic buildings and the balance between access to cultural and natural heritage and sustainable tourism.
The role of culture in integral ecological regeneration
Culture is methodological and scientific techniques; culture is ancient ecological knowledge and wisdom; culture is history, traditions, lifestyles and the invisible threads that help shape the identity of a territory or a country.
This is why culture represents the perfect intersection between education, community and innovation, the three areas of action of the Future Food Institute, with food providing one of their clearest expressions.
Because food, even before being a commodity and a necessity, is a universal language capable of bringing together people of different ages, religions, cultures, traditions and areas of expertise.
The Mediterranean Diet is one of the most tangible examples. Recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2010, the Mediterranean Diet represents craftsmanship, care, quality, diversity, authenticity and the distinctive character of communities that have always recognised food as a source of unity, connection and care.
Without diversity, today we probably would not have such authentic and distinctive products on our tables as “mozzarella nella mortella”, “invented” through the craftsmanship of Pollica shepherds to ensure the long-term preservation of cheese.
This form of culture and the values of collective prosperity that we have inherited from the Mediterranean basin — and that the Future Food Institute directly protects and promotes through the Paideia Campus in Pollica — represents an extraordinary driver of local and territorial development that needs to be showcased.
For this reason, through the Campus, we launched the Agri-Culture Youth Welfare project to relaunch local skills and entrepreneurship, providing young people in Cilento with tools such as innovative coaching techniques and Design Thinking to rediscover and enhance the hidden values and culture of the territory, creating new opportunities and redistributing beauty for the wellbeing of the community.
The success of the course was driven by the central role given to the values of the territory, rediscovered and used as a starting point for ensuring a sustainable future.
Culture must be brought back to the centre of global and national debates, and it must be returned to young people, the true protagonists of the transition.
This is what we did with the Hackathon nella Scuola 2021, where young people from across Italy imagined museums capable of engaging new generations both emotionally and experientially.
The same approach was applied again during the Pollica Design Challenge last month, where the Mediterranean Diet Museum was redesigned to make it more attractive, vibrant and “living”.
This is the true potential of the Mediterranean Diet for Italy: proof that models of integral ecological regeneration can also economically support an entire country and its supply chains when they choose to invest in quality rather than quantity.
This is precisely the work we are carrying out from Pollica together with the Italian delegation representing the Emblematic Communities of the Mediterranean Diet.
The international promotion of Mediterranean culture symbolically closes a historical circle that began with Ancel Keys, who arrived in Pollica in the mid-1990s and helped discover and make the Mediterranean Diet famous worldwide.
For this reason, Pollica’s first international mission as coordinator of the network of UNESCO Emblematic Communities, led by Sara Roversi, founder of Future Food, and Stefano Pisani, Mayor of Pollica, began in New York, the world’s global capital and home to the United Nations Headquarters.
The birthplace of the Sustainable Development Goals was therefore identified as the ideal destination in which to plant the seeds of the Mediterranean Diet: New York schools, where the values of a way of life capable of expressing extraordinary soft power can be shared with younger generations, helping to “cultivate” sustainable, inclusive and resilient communities.
The journey of the European Agrifood Week will begin precisely by embracing the culture of the territory, highlighting the crucial role it plays in promoting development models capable of enhancing production chains, identity heritage and local economies, while protecting essential resources and interpreting a genuine concept of “One Health”, in which human health, planetary health and community health come together through Mediterranean conviviality as the true nexus.
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