The organizers of Terra Madre 2008, the “world meeting of food communities” that took place in Turin, Italy from October 23rd to 27th, deserve a round of toasts and raised fists. This year’s edition brought together 8,000 farmers, cooks, academics, advocates, activists, eaters and everyday people from over 130 countries. And of those 8,000, over 3,000 were delegates under the age of thirty – myself included – gathering under the new banner of the Youth Food Movement. We represented the emerging movement of young people who, defying the precedent of recent generations, are working passionately to dig back into the earth and put real food on all of our tables. That Slow Food International was able to mobilize this young army is testament to its commitment to empowering young people to continue the work our grandparents left behind. So to those who made it possible, and to the many thousands who came and contributed, Thank you—and bravo.

The impression of someone who has never seen so many people from every foot of the globe gathered together under the giant roof of an Olympic speed skating rink is that the movement to fix our broken food system is strong. We are many, and we are working on so many creative and extraordinary projects. I was continually humbled and inspired by the people I met, particularly the young people: the recent college graduate from Uganda who has returned to his elementary school to teach kids to grow food; the anthropology student from Brazil who is organizing landless farmworkers to occupy arable land; young farmers in the U.S. banding together to start businesses; the teenage farmers who came to Terra Madre with farmer parents. When I sat down with these people, we didn’t discuss policy initiatives and compete for good ideas; we listened to and encouraged each other.

It’s been said before, but the best ideas generated at Terra Madre don’t come from the rooms where the panel discussions take place but from the coffee stations where the free espressos are given out and from the bus rides back to our hotels. That’s where American students taking the Real Food Challenge talked to farmers from Ecuador saving the seeds of their ancestors and cooks from London growing their own ingredients. Agriculture was nearly always the topic of those conversations. We discussed how to apprentice on farms, how to find access to land and how to secure credit and capital and supplies and viable markets. Admittedly, we didn’t discuss many of the techniques our generation will have to use on our farms or of the job and social incentives we’ll need to create in order to drive millions more young people back to the land. Terra Madre wasn’t the place, though, to get into those details; we can discuss them now that we’re home and have a U.S. Administration that’s more receptive to our suggestions.