Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Nicoletta Pedrana
Have you ever wondered what's inside a cup of tea?
Basically, water.
Water where leaves are dissolved
dried in a variety of ways
in order to make strong teas, light teas, teas of different colours.
But essentially, water.
Water that becomes an infusion:
and therefore a noble, sometimes haughty drink.
But also a drink
for moments of conviviality, sociability.
To welcome, to say goodbye.
Very often, in many countries of the world
tea is an identity drink of local communities.
The Iban are an indigenous community
living in a place far away from here, in Malaysia.
Specifically, in Malaysian Borneo.
It is a community that lives within the rainforest:
a tough place to live in
for people who are not used to it, who are not born there.
They were used to live as nomads,
until about a hundred years ago,
now they are sedentary
and live in housing structures called Long Houses.
These are wooden houses
with many small housing units within for the families of the community
linked together by a long corridor,
which is the corridor of sociability, the corridor of conviviality,
the corridor for the moment
where what happened through the day is shared,
before a cup of tea.
Ibans are farmers,
they have long been nomads in the forests
and were, many years ago, headhunters.
They followed this ritual, linked to a kind of sacredness
which thankfully they no longer keep;
They still keep some heads, though,
almost as a superstition,
inside the Long Houses:
hardly recognizable, to say the truth.
They farm,
they live out of their crops, and consume what they grow:
mostly, rice.
But they are, also, very skilled pepper growers.
I was there
precisely because they grow a Slow Food presidium pepper,
the Slow Food Rimbàs Presidium pepper.
A cultivation that was created to counter the spread
of deforestation, of the rainforest
and the increasing spread of oil palms.
This community is committed to cultivate pepper,
and they do it with extraordinary skill.
They know everything about pepper: how to plant it, how to cultivate it;
they do these farms on permanent structures
that last for many years.
They are so good in drying also;
they live in these fields moments of great sharing
that fascinate me very much,
since this is the first time that I have come across this.
However, they fertilise.
They fertilise in a way that is unexpected, inexplicable.
And they tell me, the fertilizer is government sent, free of charge.
So they have a fertilizer, a synthetic chemical,
given by the government for free.
And they distribute it with a punctuality
that's almost inexplicable, because there is no need.
And yet, I suffer to see
this distribution of synthetic chemical fertilizer
carried out this way,
because the land is on a slope.
Because these slopes end up in rivers
and rivers are not simply
an ecosystem resource in themselves:
they are a subsistence resource
for the communities that live in the rainforest.
But speaking up these arguments, in a studs-up tackle,
within an indigenous community,
and for me, coming from far away -
is a bit complicated,
because I reject the idea of having the approach
of someone who comes from afar and wants to teach something.
And so I suffer in part of this experience,
because on the one hand I see an extraordinary ecosystem,
I see a place rich in biodiversity, animal biodiversity, spontaneous flora
truly extraordinary,
also because of the relationship it established with the community.
It's a pain because, on the other hand,
that technology instead brings synthetic chemistry
which can only lead to devastation and desertification
we have been experiencing for many years already
in our environments, in the western world,
as a consequence of this agricultural-industrial model
that has devastated a large part of our agricultural world.
The day of departure arrives,
it is a moment of joy, a moment of conviviality,
it is a time when we all come together
inside the Long House
to trade experiences and stories.
I tell about my life and my life as an agronomist,
I tell about my experiences with Slow Food around the world.
I tell about my family,
because I know that sharing the stories of my family
is a way to connect with this community.
And at the moment when the village chief
commits to making tea,
because tea is the drink of conviviality,
it is the drink of farewell, the drink of goodbyes,
it's a way of embracing the guest.
And there is this, very traditional, preparation of tea
where the village chief
starts pouring the tea from one teapot to another,
just waiting to achieve the right dilution,
the right concentration of the infusion.
Tea is an identity drink,
and therefore it is up to him to prepare it for the guest.
The village chief pours it.
into a clear, steaming cup, and hands it to me.
I refuse the tea.
It is not a simple refrain from drinking that cup of tea.
I move that cup of tea towards the village chief.
I must tell you that, at first, I thought about the fact
that they used to be headhunters,
so I thought, maybe my head will remain here today.
But I do something that creates a dead silence in the community.
There comes 30 seconds of silence, which lasts an eternity.
It is true that time always has the same duration,
but we know very well
that depending on the tension and the dimension we are experiencing,
30 seconds can also be very long.
At the end of those 30 seconds,
when I see the gaze of the village chief
really hurt by this offence,
I take the floor
without been given it, nor having asked for it,
and I say to him:
Look, I refuse tea
because I reject the idea of drinking, in tea,
the fertilizers from the village upstream from you.
He was a little puzzled.
And I, after another 30 seconds, continued with my explanation,
and I tell him:
You see, every day you spread the fertilizer on your land,
every day it rains in your fields.
A short but intense rain.
Most of it,
the vast majority of the fertilizers that you are spreading
end up in the river.
You can get lucky and they end up in the slope,
so it seeps into the ground;
but they still end up in the river.
So what are you doing?
What are they taking you to do,
through this free fertilizers?
Which seems like a way to rediscover a green revolution
that elsewhere in the world has destroyed and is destroying the planet.
Why?
He looks at me, still very offended.
And he asks me, What's the alternative?
Explaining to a village chief what a cover crop is,
that there are species
that can be used to cover the soil,
create a turf on the ground,
species that are able
to enrich the soil with organic substance,
enrich the soil, of course, with mineral elements.
sounds like a difficult process;
instead, done with simple words, always staring into each other's eyes,
was very very simple.
The village chief, at that point, looks at me and says:
Well, I would like at this point to know, are you willing to help us?
To make this happen?
I must say that these are those unexpected moments
when you realise
that you can achieve successes, significant successes for your life,
and for your way of thinking, being and acting,
in completely unpredictable moments.
I never expected that question, from the village chief.
Of course, after my positive answer
I tried to explain to him, also, the importance of local biodiversity,
of finding species of local biodiversity.
I tried to explain the concept of environmental suitability,
the link with its territory, the need to preserve the ecosystem;
and he became more and more passionate.
Because, you see, I didn't offend the village chief
because he is destroying the ecosystem.
For him, the biggest offense was to think
that he is not caring about his community as much as he's supposed to.
About the health of his community.
So there the tension is relieved, the tension is lowered
and we start to discuss the future.
We begin to discuss of a future that is present today
because today all the fields of the Rimbàs pepper, Slow Food presidium,
are managed without fertiliser with cover crops.
Without using fertilisers of synthesis anymore.
So what has this taught me?
It has taught me how possible an ecological transition is.
That returning to the practices of the agroecology,
where agriculture meets ecology, with the ecosystem always at the centre,
where the conservation of natural resources
must come before human interest.
Of this anthropocentric vision,
which is leading us towards the destruction of the planet.
This is possible, and it is possible even with a drop in the ocean,
in Malaysian Borneo, a dot on the map of the world.
And if it is possible there, it can become contagious,
it can become extremely repeated in so many parts of the world.
And if we act responsibly,
we can help communities develop these virtuous paths.
We can help achieve goal number 12:
responsible production and consumption,
which then have an impact on objectives 14 and 15.
Sea and land, the resources of the sea and the resources of the land,
all included in that environment,
in that small ecosystem of the Rimbàs community.
But you see, this doesn't happen coming in head-on.
All this comes from sharing,
the ability to share with each other, of establishing relationships
the willingness to listen to each other,
the willingness to bring useful information to communities.
All this comes from relationships.
And the relationships, on that day ended
with the fact that I drank the cup of tea.
Thank you.
(Applause)