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| Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity |
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19/03/2010 |
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News from the Kiskunsàg region of Hungary
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HUNGARY – In the region of Kiskunsàg, a rural area south of Budapest in one of the country’s largest natural parks, you can still find small farmers raising Mangalica pigs, a breed with distinctive curly hair. The farmers themselves cure the meat and produce their own sweet paprika, a crucial ingredient in Hungarian cured meats which gives them their characteristic bright red color. This is where the Slow Food Foundation has created the Mangalica Sausage Presidium with the aim of promoting one of the most interesting products of the area and helping to protect a breed which was at one time widespread and popular from the Hungarian plain to the Carpathian mountains.
From February 7 to 10, Michele Rumiz, in charge of Slow Food Foundation activities in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, visited the Presidium and met the local coordinator, Olga Rendek, to discuss project developments and organize the Hungarian delegation attending Terra Madre 2010.
All 17 farmers who are members of the Presidium raise the animals in a semi-wild state and grow the materials used to prepare feed. Two significant issues emerged however. In recent years Mangalica pigs have become highly prized due to the outstanding quality of their meat and fat. Seeing easy profits, many large producers (in Hungary and other countries) have begun to cross Mangalicas with international hybrids such as Large White to reduce the time required for growing and fattening.
In addition, the Presidium producers are mostly unable to meet the extremely restrictive requirements of Hungarian legislation for meat processing and this means that almost all the Presidium sausage production is sold on the local market, in more or less illegal fashion, by word of mouth.
The Foundation will therefore seek the necessary funding to set up and equip a workshop meeting requirements, which all the producers can use to ensure they produce meat complying with Hungarian standards.
At the same time efforts will be made to raise public awareness of the difference between intensively farmed hybrids and the Presidium Mangalica pigs. Michele Rumiz’s visit also enabled a review of progress of the food education projects organized in the Kikunsàg region by Olga Rendek, the Presidium coordinator.
There are five local schools involved, with one particularly supportive community promoting food education projects at the Kerekegyahza elementary school, where the local school canteen is directly supplied with food from local producers. Other initiatives include: giving each child a free apple to break the habit of packaged snacks, an environmental education program and two “health weeks” in November and March.
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