Embedding crop diversity and networking for local high quality food systems

One of the key opportunities for, and expectations from, organic farming is to reverse the trend of agricultural standardisation and to embed more species and genetic diversity into farming and food systems. This year marked the end of the four-year European research project DIVERSIFOOD, ‘Embedding crop diversity and networking for local high-quality food systems’. Principal Crops Researcher Ambrogio Costanzo looks back on what’s been achieved and learned in this international and participatory project on cultivated biodiversity ‘from the seedbank to the plate’.