Soil in your mouth
Kiss the Ground is a series of meetings organized by Slow Food Amsterdam in collaboration with Food Council MRA about healthy soils. The soil is a source of life that we depend on for our nourishment. Kiss the Ground is built around a documentary that shows how we make the soil healthy by treating it with respect. The meetings are graced with lectures, debate and tasting. Concrete action is also being taken, for example for the construction of organic gardens in the Lutkemeerpolder, where the municipality of Amsterdam and Albert Heijn want to build a logistics center.
Why?
We are inundated with alarming reports of climate change, rising sea levels, soil depletion and biodiversity loss. One of the culprits is our modern system of large-scale agriculture with its greenhouse gas and nitrogen emissions. Kiss the Ground shows that things can be done differently, better. It is not too late, we can heal the earth of many ills. The soil in particular has a great self-healing capacity. That is the comforting message of Kiss the Ground. Time to roll up your sleeves!
The Kiss the Ground program fits into the grand plan of the United Nations “the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030” that will be launched on June 5, 2021. This is one of the major projects to stop the degradation of ecosystems. Kiss the Ground shows what we ourselves as producers, consumers and citizens can contribute to the healing process of Mother Earth with our local community.
The aim of the short-term meetings is to form a coalition through a manifesto for the March 2022 local elections promotes soil health and sensible management through regenerative agriculture to voters and political parties.
What and how?
Kiss the Ground offers a platform where people of good will come together to talk about concrete actions to make and keep the soil healthy. The visitors share knowledge, make plans and form partnerships. The actions range from information about soil cultivation in your own vegetable garden to drawing up a manifesto for conservation of the Lutkemeerpolder for organic farming.