In Latin America alone, more than two and a half million hectares are under traditional agriculture, in the form of raised fields, polycultures and agroforestry systems, documenting the successful adaptation of a set of farming practices to difficult environments (Altieri 1991). Many of these traditional agroecosystems, still found throughout the Andes, Meso America and the lowland tropics, constitute major in situ repositories of both crop and wild plant germplasm. These plant resources are directly dependent upon management by human groups; thus, they have evolved in part under the influence of farming practices shaped by particular cultures and the forms of sophisticated knowledge they represent. It is no coincidence that countries containing the highest diversity of plant forms also contain the greatest number of ethnic groups. |
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