Traditional Crop Management

Traditional crop management is the set of practices used for agricultural production and is based on traditional agricultural knowledge. Traditional crop management is the result of a complex coevolutionary process between natural and social systems, resulting in local strategies for natural resources appropriation. Examples of traditional crop management systems include raised fields, terraces, polycultures, and agroforestry systems. Despite their diversity, traditional crop management systems share a number of structural and functional similarities (e.g., high species diversity, microenvironment exploitation, biological interdependencies). At the local level, traditional crop management systems contribute to food security and sovereignty. At the global level, traditional crop management systems contribute to the maintenance of crop genetic diversity. Around the world, traditional crop management systems are threatened by the expansion of industrial agriculture, the introduction of mass propagation methods and hybrid or genetically modified seeds, the undervaluation of local management practices, legislation adverse to the rights to save and exchange seeds, and climate change.