The video deals with the production of sea salt in Gozo, an activity that has a long tradition in Gozo. The saltpans found near Marsalforn are still used today. It’s fascinating to walk along them, very early in the morning, and to watch the salt being collected as it glistens under the rising sun.

For this video we interviewed Leli tal-Melħ.

Salt from Xwejni is harvested once a week, roughly between the summer months of mid-May up till the beginning of September, if the weather permits. The weather plays a crucial part in every single harvest, with hot, sunny days being perfect for the harvesting of the salt. Stormy and rainy days, on the other hand, disrupt the salt-making process and no salt is collected.

After every harvest, each salt pan is manually and individually filled with water through the use of a motor pump, transferring water from the big pools to the small pans. These are then left to dry for about 7 days and the salt crystals start to form. The brine in the big pools is already very highly concentrative relative to the open sea, and therefore the crystallisation process happens much quicker and results in a fresh collection every week.

To this day, salt is harvested using brooms and brushes with thick bristles, the salt from each pan being swept and gathered into small heaps and placed in buckets. These buckets are then transferred to a flat drying surface, and a big heap of salt is formed that is then covered with cloth and left to dry for about 24 hours. The next day the dry salt is packed into 30-kilogram bags and stored.

This bilateral meeting between the Maltese partner and Slow Food clearly draws the guidelines for the mapping of the products, as well as on how to engage with the producers during the lifetime of the project and beyond. In the case of Gozo (Malta), the focus will be on the rediscovery of the island’s culinary heritage, which is inextricably tied to the island’s arid ruggedness, but also with its industrious people, steeped in centuries of influences by a succession of occupiers from all over the Mediterranean.

The result of these influences is the extreme diversity that is crying out to be valorised so as to make the island a unique, all-round experience for the discerning visitor. It is without doubt the main thrust of GRDF’s participation in the project.

It is for this reason that the participants from Gozo followed with great interest the experience of Slow Food in Extremadura (Spain), and even more so that in West Africa. In particular, we found the intertwining of food culture with the local communities particularly inspiring, focusing as it does on how age-old agro-food traditions can be meaningfully directed towards sustainable development that celebrates the social fabrics of entire communities.

One aspect that emerged during the session, and that was particularly enlightening to the participants, was the interplay between traditional extensive, slow-paced methods of food production and food processing, and environmental sustainability. Indeed, the more modern, intensive methods, for the most part, carry significantly more environmental impacts than traditional ones, which is certainly food for thought given the effort that goes into making them more efficient.

Another key takeaway was the concept that a traditional, plant-based and balanced nutrition, such as the Mediterranean diet, carries further and well beyond the much-exalted health benefits. The various classes of items as defined by the food pyramid run inversely to an increasing level of impact of each class as one moves up the pyramid.

All of this implies that a healthy diet is, as an added bonus, also less impactful on the environment. This philosophy of a more acute awareness of the richness of traditional food cultures on more than one level should continue to underpin the project’s efforts. This will be done by engaging with and helping local communities to embrace and preserve the local varieties, breeds and processed food products that together make up a territory’s agro-food heritage.

Such is also a way of empowering local farmers to promote, and in some cases to rediscover, those time-honoured values that contribute to a more community-oriented rural development, and one that is also immeasurably more environmentally sustainable than the harsher options imposed by sheer consumerism and modernity for their own sake. The result, it is hoped, will contribute to enhanced well-being and social equitability.

The MedSNAIL project has a total budget of  2.028.807,74€ and is funded by the EU under the ENI CBC Med Programme by 90% (1.825.926,97 €), it has a three-year duration and aims to foster socially and environmentally sustainable development of agro-food SMEs by giving value to traditional Euro-Mediterranean products according to a “slow” approach and short-chain principles.

The MedSNAIL kick-off meeting was held on 22 and 23 October, 2019, in Seville, Spain, hosted by Federación Andaluza de Municipios y Provincias (FAMP). All the partners joined the meeting, most in person but some remotely. Joumana Sweis, representing ENI CBC MED Valencia Branch Office, also participated.

The Gozo Regional Development Foundation was represented by Mariangela Luceri and William Sultana.

On the first day of the meeting, Teresa Muela Tudela, from FAMP, welcomed the MedSNAIL partners and thanked them for attending the meeting. Joumana then delivered an extensive presentation on the key issues pertaining to the management of ENI CBC MED projects.

FAMP’s Antonio Cosio presented to present the key issues and activities of WP1, including the management structure and appointments by FAMP itself, as well as the structure of the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee is composed of one representative per project partner and chaired by FAMP as the Lead Beneficiary.

The Steering Committee will guide project implementation by taking major decisions; evaluate project progress; manage financial and organizational aspects; and evaluate quality and relevance of MedSNAIL outputs. Six biannual Steering Committee meetings are foreseen.

A Technical Board was also set up, composed of one representative per partner and chaired by the project coordinator. The Technical Board will be the structure responsible for technical coordination, and will define monitoring and quality assessment procedures, analyse project progress, assess communication actions and propose corrective measures to be submitted to the Steering Committee.

Technical Board meetings will be combined with Steering Committee meetings so to as to optimize efforts. That is, the SC meeting and the TB meeting can take place at the same time.

Antonio also explained the key issues related to the start of the project, based on chapter 3 of the Project Implementation Manual (PIM) of ENI CBC MED programme, entitled “Project Start in Five Steps”. He emphasised the fact that the manual follows a “preventive” approach rather than a curative discipline. This is the reason why it is important at project start to identify the main steps to prepare the ground for a project implementation without problems. For this reason, FAMP will apply this “preventive” approach during the management of the MedSNAIL project.

Inma Guerrero Alés, also from FAMP, then took the floor to present the key issues and activities of WP2: Project Communication. She summed up the main issues dealt with along the communication sessions in the context of the training seminar for lead beneficiaries, held in Rome on 1 and 2 October. Inma reminded the partners of the obligation imposed by the Programme to have information about MedSNAIL Project published in their corporative websites, according to the template sent by FAMP.

On the second day, 23 October, a Technical Session was conducted, focusing on WP3 transnational agro-food alliance, and WP4 market-driven pilot initiatives. Marina Mainardi, from Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, addressed issues related to WP3 by explaining the workings of Slowfood Foundation, which will serve as a methodology model for the development of the MedSNAIL project.

The methodology proposed for the entire duration of the project can be summed as follows:

• Phase 1: A brief description of the agricultural heritage of the area being surveyed will be carried out;
• Phase 2: An inventory of products will be created, with identities strongly linked to the territories of reference;
• Phase 3: The partners will identify products to be included in the Ark of Taste project;
• Phase 4: The project will identify products that will be included in the Slow Food Presidia project.

Marina followed up with a proposal for a calendar for the development of the first activities related to the WP3 of the project.

Nazarena Lanza, also from Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, then explained in depth the Slowfood methodology, give some practical examples to better illustrate the Slowfood approach. Nazarena’s address served to enlighten the partner representatives as to the situation of their territories regarding local slow food network and possible local alliances and partnerships.

Finally, Yaser Abunnasr and Shady Hamadeh, from the American University of Beirut (AUB), highlighted some initiatives developed by AUB and presented the outputs of WP3 relating to training and analysis, such as the training courses on the MedSNAIL approach and the MedSNAIL Legacy.

A very successful and productive meeting came to an end, auguring well for the further development of the project activities in the coming weeks and months, and with the promise of meeting again in Beirut in 2020.