The fate of humanity is bound to biodiversity, the Earth's richest heritage, which provides us with the sustenance we need to survive. Without it, our future would be bleak. On the occasion of Seeds&Chips 2017, the food and innovation summit organised in Milan, we met Edward Mukiibi, vice-president of Slow Food International and coordinator of activities in Uganda for Slow Food. Mukiibi is an agronomist born and raised in Uganda, where he works with local communities and young people with the aim of reviving traditional farming techniques to meet future challenges. His mission is to defend and promote African biodiversity.

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Returning to the land and using it sustainably is essential for the future of people and biodiversity. What is the People4Soil petition that Slow Food supports, and why does it matter?
Soil is a living organism — it contains so much life and biodiversity within it. And when we decide to stop nourishing it, we stop nourishing ourselves: we must feed the earth in order to feed ourselves. We must take care of the soil, not pollute it. It is a non-renewable resource, and if we keep destroying it, there will be nothing left to do. Soil is the foundation of many civilisations: the lives of countless people are tied to the land, and many communities are built upon it. That is why we must protect this non-renewable resource.

Another European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) that you support aims to ban glyphosate. What do you think of this herbicide — the most widely used in agriculture?
Glyphosate is widely used but, in reality, it is not a necessity in our production systems. It has become a standard that destroys the environment and biodiversity, creates dependency and, above all, ties people to the multinationals that produce it. Moreover, it does not only destroy weeds but also other forms of life, such as the millions of insects in the soil and bees, which are one of the most important things in existence on the face of the Earth.

Furthermore, it is not true that wild plants are useless. On the contrary, they bring many benefits to the ecosystem. In some communities we do not have access to the latest mapping systems, and for this reason smallholder farmers depend on plants. For example, in our traditional farming system in Africa we use some of them as indicators: when they grow, they tell us what is right for that type of soil. But if you have an industrial monoculture system that uses large quantities of glyphosate, certain species or types of crop will eventually stop growing.

You are also working in African communities and schools through the 10,000 Gardens in Africa project. What does this initiative involve?
The 10,000 Gardens in Africa project is carried out by us — Africans — who support the Slow Food philosophy and believe that the peoples of Africa too deserve access to good, clean and fair food. We created this project to revitalise our traditional agricultural systems, which have always been there for us and are designed precisely for Africa's challenging environment.

This project also helps to preserve our local and traditional knowledge. It helps to reconnect the old and new generations, because there are men and women who could teach young people a great deal about biodiversity and the local agricultural system — about how to manage the soil and how to cope with drought. This is the knowledge we must pass on to the new African generation.

Since Africa is a young continent in demographic terms, we must re-establish a connection between young people and the land. All too often we lose contact with the land because people believe it is not being used and so it is handed over to investors from China or other parts of the world. In the end, it is the communities that lose out. But if we rebuild this bond to reduce rural migration, we will be able to build a community that understands the true value of growing its own food, using the land we have.

The 10,000 Gardens in Africa project seeks to bring all of these things together. Slow Food has helped to raise awareness of and expand the project in many countries, especially in communities that were losing out from their own activities.

Can you also tell us about your personal project, Developing innovations in school cultivation?
The Developing innovations in school cultivation project was launched to reshape young people's attitudes towards farming. I grew up on a farm with my mother, but school led me to hate that kind of activity. This is because many African schools use agriculture as a form of punishment. So we wanted to create something positive, educational, motivating and, above all, interesting. I had this idea, we started working on it by talking with young people to bring them back to farming. In this way they can work with the land, discover new techniques and revisit existing ones. If we give them space, they will become innovators.

What do you mean by innovation, and what role would the new generation play?
I don't believe in creating entirely new things. I believe there are some very good traditional practices that promote agroecology [an approach that takes a holistic view of agriculture, ed.], but which need to be revisited or updated so that they can meet current challenges. We are working in some schools with this project, but we have not yet received enough funding to bring it to a larger scale, although we hope this will happen soon. We need people to invest in sustainable agriculture, shortening the food supply chain, producing plant-based soil amendments, and working with young innovators.

How can local, sustainable agriculture be the solution in an increasingly globalised world?
We all come from a local community. So the challenge is ours: to rethink and rebuild an economy close to home, one that supports local farmers and vendors and farmers' markets. Only in this way will we manage to join all the dots. Before acting globally, we must start acting locally. I believe we need to start with ourselves — by meeting farmers at local markets and giving them feedback on their products. At the local level, there is this connection between consumers and producers. If we join all these dots, the global issue will be resolved. This does not mean we have to stop shopping at the supermarket, because we also need to talk to large companies about creating dedicated shelves for local farmers' products. It is a work of activism, of positive lobbying. One step at a time, we can do it.