Ingredients from the Kitchen Gardens
Documenting local food plant diversity in Loma Bonita and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec
Our project sites are embedded in different social and ecological contexts, and each site has a specific richness and diversity of edible food plants. To obtain information on the diversity people manage and use we executed plant inventories in the homegardens in Loma Bonita (Chiapas) and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec (Oaxaca).
We focused on home gardens, since they are often the most diverse land-use system. Home gardens provide a mini-overview of the local food crop diversity because they contain a lot of plants that can also be found in the natural surroundings and agroecosystems where people produce or collect food plants. Home gardens also serve as living seed banks and farmers´ experimentation sites.
The local farmers in Loma Bonita and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec were pleased to share their knowledge on food plants during the plant inventories. The results will be used to elaborate illustrative material on local food plant diversity and contribute to the exchange of knowledge among the community members.
Data will also be used to identify crops species and variants that are less common and which should be included in future project activities (e.g., food forest, seed exchange, biocultural archive) by following the principle of “conservation through use”.
