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Climate Action

Italian top chef Carlo Cracco partners with IFAD for World Environment Day 2015

International Fund for Agricultural Development has partnered with Italian celebrity chef to raise awareness on the impacts of climate change on the world’s traditional foods

  • 05 June 2015
  • William Brittlebank

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has partnered with Italian celebrity chef, Carlo Cracco, for World Environment Day 2015 to raise awareness on the impacts of climate change on the world’s traditional foods.

World Environment Day (WED) is celebrated annually on 5 June and is run by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to address key environmental issues and catalyse action on climate change.

Cracco has participated in IFAD’s Recipes for Change campaign that demonstrates how IFAD is working with farmers in developing countries to assist their climate change adaptation efforts.

Renowned chefs cook foods that are being threatened by climate change and Cracco visited the Highlands of Eastern Morocco in March where he starred in an episode of Recipes for Change,  seeing first-hand how changing conditions are effecting key ingredients in traditional dishes such as Moroccan truffles.

By launching the episode on World Environment Day 2015 on Friday, IFAD is aiming to raise awareness about what can be done to help small-scale farmers adapt to climate change.

Cracco showed how climate change has caused land degradation, desertification, drought and unpredictable prolonged hot and cold weather.

Cracco said: “Coming here is a humbling experience because if you let it, the desert will advance. So it is essential to do something for those who live here so they will not leave or move away.”

IFAD  is collaborating with local communities and the United Nations Industrialization Development Organization (UNIDO) on the Recipes for Change project to promote sustainable management of natural resources.

The project is designed to reintroduce indigenous plants to the ecosystem, put up fencing in designated areas to stop grazing, and construct micro dams for water collection.

Cracco added: “Climate change is a fact. Perhaps we can slow it down, but we cannot stop it. So we must help those people who work to recuperate the land, so that there is a change in the way we fight the battle of climate change.”