Contacts: Gigi Berardi, WWU Professor of Environmental Studies, (360) 650-2106

Slow Foods' Carlo Petrini and WWU's Gigi Berardi hold WWU's signed MOU with Slow Foods.

WWU photo

BELLINGHAM - Western Washington University has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Slow Food, an organization with more than 100,000 members in 132 countries founded to bolster local food traditions and food production systems, enhance food choices, and protect farm production practices.

The MOU joins WWU and more than 130 colleges and universities worldwide in forming a network of collaboration and reaffirms WWU's commitment to resilient farm systems and practices, and of obtaining quality agricultural food products that include small-scale production and economically, socially and ecologically sustainable practices.

"Slow Food also brings together business interests such as agritourism projects and environmental studies under a sustainable food production umbrella, and poses some new possibilities for interdisciplinary work at Western," said Western Washington University Professor of Environmental Studies Gigi Berardi, who spearheaded Western's agreement with Slow Food.

"Collaboration is invited under MOUs, and this is no exception - exchange programs with faculty and students, as well as community members, are possible," she said. "And I'll be teaching a class next fall called 'Ecogastronomy: The Art and Science of Food,' that will use considerable materials and project ideas from Slow Food offices and cooperating universities."

For more information about Western's MOU with Slow Food, contact Gigi Berardi, professor of Environmental Studies in WWU's Huxley College of the Environment, at Gigi. Berardi@wwu.edu.

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