Mountain horticultural agrobiodiversity

Landraces are traditional cultivated plants, locally adapted, often under threat of disappearing. Horticultural plants require attention for their abundance but also vulnerability: a significant number of unknown landraces still exist in farms in hilly territories. Isolation has been in this case an advantage because these are the places where the most of agrobiodiversity could be preserved. The landraces could then represent quality food chains for mountain communities, although historically cultivated, they could be rediscovered and represent new and innovative solutions to environmentally friendly agriculture and supporting human health, contributing to a varied and more sustainable diet. The focus session aims to: Improve the knowledge basis to understand what agrobiodiversity is and why it is important how to inventory and describe mountain horticultural agrobiodiversity landraces for mountains development: study cases of community based and participatory approach management of agrobiodiversity Promotion of marketing niches based on landraces.