Agro-biodiversity, green agriculture and socio-cultural heritage: a case study of recovery and valorization of local resources

In the last decades, the predominant models of growth of agriculture and forestry, have eroded the genetic diversity of plants, animals, insects and microorganisms. The reduction of genetic resources affects ecosystem functioning and significant disruptions of ecosystems can result in life sustaining ecosystem goods and services. Indirectly, changes in ecosystem services have impacts on livelihoods, income and risks to severely compromise productivity and in certain situations food security. It stands to reason that food security does not exist without the safeguard of biodiversity. Many scenarios analysis shows that to feed the planet is a feasible challenge if practices of biodiversity conservation will be integrated with sustainable agricultural systems. Most of the conflicts between agriculture and biodiversity can therefore be overcome with the spread of green agricultural practices, constructive changes of the agricultural/food policies and a bigger awareness from people that work in this sector. Several innovative projects show that if the conservation of biodiversity is proper integrated with agricultural practices can generate ecological and socio-economical benefit, especially for small- scale producers and affect positively the food security issues. So, starting from a few introductive considerations on the reciprocal relationship between biodiversity and sustainable agriculture, the paper introduces the case study of the Basket of typical products of the Province of Turin (with a specific focus on the Heritage Piedmontese Apple Varieties), that show how is really possible to implement this complementarity and to improve the techniques of production and sell through the realisation of small scale productive systems able to respect and integrate the socio-cultural local features.