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Carlo Petrini: Italian gastronome, sociologist, writer, and activist, founder of the Slow Food association.
Born to a greengrocer mother and a railway worker father, he studied sociology at the University of Trento and took an active part in political life, being elected as a city councilor in Bra for the Partito di Unità Proletaria list. He has been involved in food and wine journalism since 1977 for major Italian magazines and newspapers, and actively participated, together with Stefano Bonilli, in the founding of Gambero Rosso, initially a monthly supplement of Il Manifesto.
During this period, through ARCI, he collaborated with the Club Tenco and was the discoverer, in 1980, of the Gemelle Nete. He founded the “Libera e Benemerita Associazione degli Amici del Barolo,” which in July 1986 became Arcigola, while maintaining strong ties with Gambero Rosso and the magazine La Gola.
He is the creator of important events such as Cheese, the Salone del Gusto in Turin, and the biennial event Terra Madre, which reached its eighth edition in 2018 and takes place in Turin concurrently with the Salone del Gusto. On December 9, 1989, the international movement Slow Food was founded in Bra. He edited the Guide to the Wines of the World and served as editor of the Guide to the Wines of Italy. He has collaborated with publications such as l’Unità and La Stampa; since 2007 he has been a contributor to La Repubblica.
He has been at the forefront of the battle against GMOs, often finding himself in disagreement with figures from the scientific community who support research into genetically modified organisms and their use.
On May 23, 2007, he was appointed among the 45 members of the national founding committee of the Democratic Party. In 2008, the British newspaper The Guardian placed him among the 50 people who could save the planet, and in August of the same year he was named an Ashoka Fellow. In 2012, he was indicated by Vittorio Sgarbi as a candidate for prime minister of his political movement, and in 2013 by Michele Santoro as a possible minister in a future government.
Feeding the planet
In Italy, Carlo Petrini is one of the strongest supporters of a more “compatible” form of agriculture, identifying it as a way to achieve higher yields as well, and thus opposing the overwhelming power of the agri-food industry.
In contrast to this view are those such as Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, or agronomist Antonio Saltini, who foresee instead a future marked by a renewed and dramatic worsening of food shortages due to the exhaustion of the potential of scientific discoveries and technical means that have allowed global cereal production to triple over five decades.
Awards
- 2000 – Awarded the Communicator of the Year Trophy (established by the IWSC, International Wine and Spirit Competition)
- 2002 – Received the Sicco Mansholt Prize, promoted by the Dutch foundation of the same name, for the work carried out by Slow Food in support and defense of a new model of sustainable agriculture
- 2004 – Listed by Time Magazine among the “Heroes of Our Time” in the Innovator category
- 2009 – Winner of the “Turinese of the Year” Award
- 2010 – Winner of the National Culture of Peace Award
- 2012 – Awarded the Camillo Cavour Prize (established by the “Friends of the Camillo Cavour Foundation” in collaboration with the “Camillo Cavour Foundation”)
- 2013 – Winner of the Wooden Slingshot Award for promoting important battles against GMOs, in defense of the land and the dignity of labor
- 2013 – Awarded honorary citizenship of Laigueglia
- 2014 – Awarded an honorary degree in “Comparative Law, Economics and Finance” by the International University College of Turin
- 2016 – Appointed FAO Special Ambassador for Zero Hunger in Europe
Honors
Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
«On the initiative of the President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi»
— December 11, 2004
Works
- Good, Clean, and Fair. Principles of a New Gastronomy, Einaudi (2005; Giunti/Slow Food Editore 2016)
- Slow Food Revolution, Rizzoli
- Slow Food. The Reasons of Taste, Laterza
- Atlas of the Vineyards of the Langhe. Barolo and Barbaresco, Slow Food Editore
- with Gigi Garanzini, In France with Italy, Baldini & Castoldi Dalai
- with Marisa Radaelli and Carlo Leidi, La Morra in the Heart of Barolo. Stories and Images of One of the Capitals of Wine, GRH
- Terra Madre. How Not to Be Eaten by Food (with DVD), Giunti Editore, 2009 ISBN 978-88-09-74436-3
- Food and Freedom, Giunti/Slow Food Editore, 2013
- with Stefano Mancuso, Biodiverse, Giunti/Slow Food Editore, 2015
- with Gigi Padovani, Slow Food. History of a Possible Utopia, Giunti/Slow Food Editore, 2017
