FPT Industrial, the global powertrain brand of CNH Industrial N.V. (NYSE:CNHI / MI:CNHI), has teamed up with Slow Food, a global grassroots organization, to support two local communities’ initiatives, in Italy and France, aimed at adopting more sustainable and inclusive practices, thus helping the communities survive the current crisis and build more resilient local economies for the future, with good, clean and fair food front and center.
Founded in 1989, Slow Food was established to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of the so called ‘fast lifestyle’ and to combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us. Since its beginnings, Slow Food has grown into a global movement involving millions of people in over 160 countries, working to ensure everyone has access to good, clean and fair food.
FPT Industrial chose to partner with Slow Food in order to reaffirm, at a local level, its long-standing commitment to sustainability; a commitment demonstrated not only through the production of low-impact, high-performance engines, but also through an array of sustainability projects and concrete actions. The two communities jointly selected by FPT Industrial and Slow Food are the cooperatives Valdibella and NoE in Sicily, Italy and La Seyne-sur-Mer Prud’homie in southern France.
The Valdibella cooperative produces biological food from ancient varieties of local crops adopting a sustainable approach to agriculture using conservation cultivation methods to maintain natural soil fertility. The NoE (No Emargination) cooperative was founded in 1993 and encourages the social inclusion of disabled people. In 1998 the city of Partinico entrusted the cooperative with a plot of land that had been confiscated from the mafia. This land was converted into biological agriculture fields, cultivated with olive trees, vegetables and arable crops. FPT Industrial and Slow Food will support the two cooperatives in their projects which are focused on the creation of a “food forest” reproducing the natural eco-system and capable of diversifying food production while preserving the landscape, as well as the creation of an autonomous supply chain model, to deliver high quality biological food at an affordable price.
The La Seyne-sur-Mer Prud’homie is one of the 33 prud’homies (fishing collectives) present along France’s Mediterranean coast. These collective organizations have managed French marine resources for over ten centuries, and today play an essential control and conservation role in marine zones, preserving a historic cultural model and participating in everyday port life. Approximately, 20 fishermen, some of them working with FPT Industrial powered boats, are committed to sustainable fishing and to passing on these virtuous traditions to younger generations through the strengthening of the local supply chain. With the support of FPT Industrial and Slow Food, the community will be able to upgrade its infrastructure as well as create additional local jobs.
“Being a leader of some of the most prestigious World Sustainability Indices over the last decade, means demonstrating, day by day, concrete support for all those initiatives which can produce a tangible change in people’s and communities’ lives, be they big or small. These projects have been financed through the CNH Industrial solidarity fund, a $2 million fund focused on helping local communities impacted by COVID-19,” said Daniela Ropolo, Head of Sustainable Development Initiatives at CNH Industrial.
“Slow Food believes food is tied to many other aspects of life, including culture, politics, agriculture and the environment,” commented Francesco Sottile of Slow Food. “Through our food choices we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced and distributed, and change the world as a result. These projects had already started, but they needed ‘to accelerate’ in order to show that the right way is the right choice. That’s why we, in cooperation and collaboration with our partners and supporters, decided to finance them. Because the change has to happen: and happen now.”