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Ark of Taste: the project looks to the world, and entrusts this huge task of taking a census to the network of convivia and food communities. Italy is home to an incred- ibly rich and diverse heritage of high-quality food products – cheeses, cured meats, breads – but we must also realize that food biodiversity is made up of breeds and seeds, of fruits and vegetables, of fish and shellfish, of everything that over the mil- lennia humans have selected and perfected for their diet. This complex system of food and agricultural biodiversity is today under serious threat from the unsustain- able logic of the industrial production and distribution system.We have to understand how much is left, locate it geographically, and test its sus- tainability and reproducibility: those are the tasks for the Ark. It will then be up to Slow Food’s national branches, as well as institutions, NGOs and professional as- sociations, if they have the strength and opportunity, to intervene to help local prod- ucts, improve their production techniques, ensure they can command an adequate price on the market and convince producers to join together and collaborate: In other words, the work of a Slow Food Presidium. But that’s another story.87