6-11 June 2019; live-streaming Saturday 8 June

We won't have a society if we destroy the environment. Margaret Mead

Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics. David Attenborough

Food is the basis of community and civilisation. Many of the world’s current problems can be ascribed to food systems and agricultural policy.

The general public, politicians, and even businesses are becoming more conscious of the damage done to the planet and its myriad causes: exploitation of non-renewable resources, industrial farming, climate change, pollution, and the population itself. Nature is evidently intrinsic to modern human life. For some, the countdown to doomsday has already started. Now, the new ‘frontline’ is all around us – it is our environment.

Internationally renowned journalism pioneer, the Frontline Club, and food and culture hub, Castello di Potentino, are teaming up to highlight these issues and address them through a series of talks: live streaming from medieval castle and farm estate in remote Tuscany to London transmitting the rural directly into a variety of urban situations, while keeping an increasingly isolationist UK in touch with discussion in the EU. The first symposium will take place 4-11 June 2019.

The collaboration weds Potentino’s food and wine mission to Frontline’s journalistic expertise with the aim of creating a dynamic, constructive debate around what we eat, agriculture, the natural world, and how we receive information about it through the media.  

Guests at the first Frontline-Potentino Symposium will include: the Economist’s John Hooper, Human Rights lawyer Terry Collingsworth, Founder of Rococo Chocolate Chantal Coady OBE, award-winning documentary director Miki Mistrati, and social innovators Nelson and Maggie Reiyia.

Charlotte Horton, Director of Castello di Potentino explains: ‘Ancient communities established themselves through food systems. By developing an understanding of their environment they provided not only sustenance for survival, but also the evolution of more complex cultural activities and improved methods of cultivation. Civilization developed from a productive relationship with the land. But now, in times of ultra-urbanization, many societies have become disconnected from the natural environment, leaving a small percentage of the population in control of overall nutrition.

This fragmentation between the rural and the urban is marked by a trend towards large scale, heavily industrialized agriculture. Produce is shipped enormous distances for ever-growing populations, which makes individual groups vulnerable and has a significant impact on the environment. When we lose control of our own resources, society is powerless to provide for local communities. If what we eat is a reflection of our community, then what does food that has travel thousands of miles say about who we are?’

Frontline Club

The Frontline Club is a media club near London's Paddington Station. With a strong emphasis on conflict reporting, it aims to champion independent journalism, provide an effective platform from which to support diversity and professionalism in the media, promote safe practice, and encourage both freedom of the press and freedom of expression worldwide.

Discussion Themes

Themes to be discussed include:

• Crime and Fraud in Food
• Humanitarian Aid, Immigration and Global Food Policies
• Veganism
• Extinction Rebellion
• Food Policies