Brescia Organic Festival Highlights Culture, Tastings, and Sustainable Development
A festival to taste and have fun, but also to reflect on the local emergencies and on a development model that often proves to be disrespectful of the environment and consumers: this is the essence of “Festa in castello in una sera d’estate,” the event taking place tonight and Sunday at the Polpenazze Castle, proposing itself as a weekend dedicated to organic products and clean cultivation.
It will be two days filled with cultural events, tastings, and debates about the significance of choosing organic, which has now completely escaped the ideological niche in which it was confined for many years, becoming a commercial phenomenon. The organic market grows by 20% annually, an unimaginable rate compared to other food sectors: according to some industry studies, by 2005 organic products will account for 8% of total consumption and about 10% of European farmland will be cultivated without pesticides.
The Development of the Organic Sector
Even in the province of Brescia, the number of organic companies is increasing year after year, currently approaching 200 entities. A process of reconversion is underway, driven by the demand from more upscale consumer segments, attentive to health and quality of food, and especially very scared by the continual alarms that have ricocheted through the media in recent years—mad cow disease, avian flu, dioxin contamination.
The Polpenazze festival, now in its third edition, will reflect on all this by proposing an alternative model of consumption and culture, offering the possibility to purchase certified products and setting up gastronomic stands where typical dishes prepared with 100% organic raw materials will be served. “Many events along Lake Garda during summer target tourists, but ours offers a different approach,” explains Marino Bortolotti, one of the organizers.
“We wanted to organize a celebration capable of inspiring reflection. But it remains a festival, because we didn’t want to abandon the lively pace of a popular fair with spit-roasted meat and evening music performances, while also inviting attendees to contemplate some themes of Garda culture, developed by those who live and work in our territory.”
Themes and Activities of the Festival
Culture, which, the organizers are confident, cannot avoid linking with organic cultivation, aiming to continue traditional agricultural techniques to benefit our region, with a perspective of positioning the area as an ecological niche for typical productions, especially oil and wine.
The festival begins today at 4 pm with the opening of the bio-market and a collective exhibition by painters from Valtenesi. At 6 pm, “L’inventore dei sogni,” a theatrical story for children from 7 to 70 years old, at 7 pm, the organic gastronomic stand opens, and at 9 pm, “Hosteria e Poesia,” a table service of Brescia poetry and music with the Viandanze company.
Tomorrow, the market opens at 9:30 am; at 11 am, a debate in the council chamber on the topic “Agriculture between GMOs and Organic” featuring Gianni Tamino, biologist from the University of Padua, Silvano Delai, president of the association La Buona Terra, and Gaetano Vertova from the Mediterranean Certification Institute, one of the nine entities accredited by the state to certify organic products.
At noon, a biolunch available only upon reservation; in the evening, gastronomic stands and a storyteller at the castle.