Organic wild species crops: A tool to recover traditional knowledge, and to enhance biodiversity, food security and sustainable rural development

Abstract

In the context of intense ecological and socioeconomic changes on Mediterranean regions, we performed semi – structured interviews to recuperate the traditional knowledge of plants. We analyse the reported species (and those added from the literature) to evaluate their ecological appropriateness for cultivation, and their ecological and market value. We selected the 46 species (35 of them reported by the informants) that scored high for organic cultivation. These results indicate the high potential of wild species to develop new ecological and economical valuable crops, and the high value of traditional knowledge as an information source.

Keywords: Agroecology, NUS (Neglected and Underutilized Species), ethnobotany, organic farming, Mediterranean landscape