Empowering Indigenous Youth and their Communities to Defend and Promote their Food Heritage

The project builds on the success of the last IFAD-funded grant to Slow Food and will focus on the valorization of food heritage products. Through the Presidia value chain model, it will create economic opportunities for targeted indigenous youth and communities. The project will work to strengthen the existing Indigenous Terra Madre (ITM) network by providing institutional support, as well as building on the capacity of indigenous youth to become agents in scaling up the Presidia model and actively participating in the global debate on indigenous food systems.

Beneficiaries of this proposal are divided in two primary direct target groups:

• Indigenous youth. Some 300 indigenous rural youth, aged 15-34, living in communities within IFAD-funded projects and within the broader ITM network. 
• Indigenous peoples’ communities. Indigenous peoples’ communities involving 500 poor rural indigenous producers, where potential for development of Slow Food Presidia projects is high