Summary
The co-evolution of plants, environment and cultures makes possible the existence of plant varieties known as landraces. Dynamically conserved by farmers, landraces constitute identity elements of the productive communities in which they are maintained to satisfy nutritional, medicinal, and cultural needs, among others. This study provides empirical evidence for the understanding of cultural processes and traditional knowledge associated with the cultivation of native varieties, developed and shared by family farmers in three Uruguayan towns, in a context of homogenization of agrodiversity. Based on the analysis of interviews and observation, results indicate that there are productive as well as affective and emotional reasons for in situ conservation of many native varieties integrated into production systems and worlds of life of two types of farmers: traditional and neo-rural. Both types of farmers produce knowledge, practices and meanings linked to the native varieties that they treasure as their own resources in an interdependence between nature and community.
Keywords:
agrobiodiversity; landraces; traditional knowledge; family farmers; Uruguay
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