More than Yield: Ecosystem Services of Traditional versus Modern Crop Varieties Revisited

Abstract

Agricultural intensification with modern plant breeding focuses on few high-yielding crops and varieties. The loss of traditional crop species and variety diversity contributes to the current decline of provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services, as reported in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Access to local and adapted varieties is pivotal for resilient agroecosystems, in particular under current global change. We reviewed the scientific literature to understand the role of different crop varieties for ecosystem services, comparing the performance and perception of traditional landraces versus modern varieties and ask the following questions: 1. Do landraces and modern varieties differ in terms of provisioning and regulating ecosystem services? 2. When and why do farmers prefer cultural ecosystem services of landraces over high-yielding varieties? Based on 41 publications, our results document that modern varieties are preferred over landraces because of their typically higher provisioning services such as crop yield. However, landraces often guarantee higher provisioning services under non-optimal farming conditions. Landraces can show high resilience under harsh environmental conditions and are a trusted source achieving stable crop yield (e.g., under droughts stress). Regulating services such as resistance against pests and diseases appear to often become lost during breeding for high-yielding, modern varieties. Furthermore, small-scale farmers typically prefer local landraces due to regional cultural features such as family traditions and cooking characteristics for special dishes. In conclusion, both landraces and modern varieties have merit depending on the farmers' priorities and the social-ecological context. In any case, maintaining and restoring the huge diversity of landrace varieties is necessary for sustaining current and future needs.

The Importance of Cultural Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity for Landscape Visitors in the Biosphere Reserve Swabian Alb (Germany)

“…Barthel et al [20] described the development of our agricultural landscapes as an "ongoing and accelerating generational amnesia of traditional practices and experiences", which is detrimental to biodiversity and ecosystem services. The (re-)integration of adapted landraces though was shown to provide numerous cultural and traditional values, along with reinforcing social-ecological resilience [72].…”

Development of a Multipurpose Core Collection of Bread Wheat Based on High-Throughput Genotyping Data

“…Wheat landraces are among the most suitable germplasm resource where the genetic variation required to that end can be searched [1] and utilized through a pre-breeding process. These locally adapted varieties, traditionally grown with less artificial resource inputs, are genetically diverse repositories of unique traits that have evolved in local environments, which cover a wide range of biotic and abiotic conditions [2,3]. Different studies have shown that Mediterranean wheat landraces represent a particularly important group of genetic resources, where extensive genetic variability as well as tolerance to drought, resistance to diseases and adaptability to low-input farming systems have been documented (see review [3]).…”

Making Use of Sustainable Local Plant Genetic Resources: Would Consumers Support the Recovery of a Traditional Purple Carrot?

“…The main cause of genetic erosion, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [1], is the replacement of local varieties with modern varieties. Modern varieties are preferred over landraces (locally adapted, traditional plant varieties, or farmers' varieties) because they typically provide higher benefits to producers, such as crop yield [2]. Contrary to modern varieties, landraces tend not to be genetically uniform and contain high levels of genetic diversity [1].…”