Do consumers support farmers and food supply chains promoting agrobiodiversity?

DIVINFOOD Practice abstracts

English. Agrobiodiversity, including all the plant species and varieties used for food, is in decline. Just three crops account for 60% of the calories consumed worldwide: wheat, maize and rice (FAO). Consumers are sensitive to the disappearance of insects and birds, but do they support the farmers and food supply chains that promote other crops, and, especially, neglected and underutilised crops (NUCs)? The DIVINFOOD project launched a wide-ranging online survey covering 7 European countries (Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland), in the national languages. Among other questions, respondents were asked to evaluate ‘conventional’ and ‘alternative’ options for using and promoting agrobiodiversity in food supply chains, using a scale ranging from 'excellent' to 'bad'. In addition, workshops of 8-15 consumers were organised in the different countries to better understand why they prefer particular ways of using or promoting agrobiodiversity in food supply chains, taking the minor cereals or legumes studied in DIVINFOOD as concrete examples of NUCs. Both in the online survey and in the workshops, alternative options, highlighted as favourable to agrobiodiversity in the scientific literature and by farmers themselves, have been better evaluated than conventional options. The workshops made it clear that different supply chains and venues were useful and complementary for valorising NUCs: farmers' markets and restaurants provide consumers an opportunity to discover some NUCs for the first time, short and local chains help to develop the reputation of NUCs. Supermarkets and collective catering were also found to be useful for city dwellers who are distant from farms and for developing the NUC market on a larger scale.