Environmental Sustainability of Traditional Crop Varieties: Reviewing Approaches and Key Issues for a Multilevel Evaluation

This chapter focuses on the issue of environmental sustainability of traditional crop varieties through a review of scientific studies and technical reports on the topic. From the review, two main arguments emerge in support of traditional crop varieties because of their environmental outreaches: (a) the increase of biodiversity achieved by growing different germplasm for the same crop decreases the quantity of pesticides dramatically and (b) traditional crop varieties allow the use of low-input agricultural practices and so lead to products with relatively minor indirect environmental impacts. Expressing resource consumption or environmental impacts per unit of land used allows evaluation of the impacts of cultivating a certain area. This parameter is also called the impact intensity of a farm. The chapter conducts an extensive literature search of publications focusing on environmental outreaches of the use of ancient varieties in order to better frame the importance of traditional cultivars for their environmental properties.