 © Carlos Trujillo, Ana Martínez i Alba CondeImage from the report made by students from the University of Valencia. |
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Valencian tomatoes, Gandia’s eggplants or Benicarlo’s artichokes are home crops, traditional products that still today can be bought in places like Mercat Central de Valencia— Valencia’s main marketplace. Other crops have completely disappeared and there is no way back. S.O.S. variedades tradicionales (S.O.S. traditional varieties) focuses on the extinction of some of these traditional crop varieties. The report was made by Carlos Trujillo, Ana Martínez and Alba Conde—students of Journalism at the University of Valencia. Are profitability and quality compatible goals? The report analyses the challenges the Valencian agricultural sector faces today regarding biodiversity loss. Research and conservation are the keys to the problems crops like the tiger nut (from which the popular beverage horchata is made) are facing, and which are affecting the labourers’ profits, as we can see in the video. Different research centres, like COMAV (University Institute for the Conservation and Improvement of Valencian Agrodiversity) and the UPV’s (Polytechnic University of Valencia) seedbank, or associations like Llavors d’ací (Home seeds), are working to solve these problems and for the preservation of local varieties. Marina Sanjuán Sánchez. Student of Journalism at University of Valencia. |
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