Despite the unbelievable horror of the situation on the ground in Ukraine, many of our Slow Food leaders and activists have decided to stay behind to protect, feed and restore their communities. They are calling on us—the global Slow Food family—to support them; both those who have had to leave their homes, and those who have stayed behind.
Slow Food will raise funds to support Ukraine in two ways:
1) Saving Ukrainian biodiversity. To support those farmers who, even in wartime, have not left their farms and continue to work under the most difficult conditions, risking their lives to preserve the animal breeds and plant varieties they grow in order to nourish their local community and feed the future. We are making a plea to the global Slow Food community to support them financially with a donation.
2) Keeping knowledge alive. To create matching opportunities between Ukrainian Slow Food Community members and their counterparts throughout Europe, thus allowing for refugee farmers and food producers to be hosted by fellow producers to facilitate a meaningful opportunity for learning and exchange. Beekeepers to be matched with beekeepers, cheesemakers with cheesemakers, and so on. We believe this exchange will not only allow for Ukrainian food producers to keep practicing their trades in exile but will be a fruitful exchange of skills: skills which will be vital for the post-war reconstruction of the country.
As we develop these two projects, we will provide constant updates on this page and on all Slow Food communication channels: the list of Slow Food Communities to be supported, how the resources will be distributed, and the matches that we will create.
We ask you for your support: any amount you can give helps. DONATE NOW and share the message with your friends and contacts, so we can all ensure that urgent support is given where it is needed to most.
The funds raised will be entirely allocated to the Slow Food Communities in Ukraine, according to the indications provided to us by the coordinators of the network.
Find out more
- Read a message from Ukraine, sent by Julia Pitenko, Convivium Leader of Slow Food in Kyiv, on behalf of all Slow Food activists in Ukraine
- Read the interview with Ievgen Klopotenko, a member of the Slow Food Alliance of Chefs in Ukraine.
- Saving people who save cows: read the interview with Mykhailo Travetsky, breeder and veterinarian who lives in Pryluky and received the first donations
- Slow Food Ucraina at Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2022
- Sometimes it takes a village: Birky, a haven for Ukrainian poultry
- Olena Tovsta, Ukrainian farmer: ‘The Slow Food network saved my farm’
- Cooking as Political Act and Message of Peace
- Ukraine: biodiversity as a means of reconstruction
