ALEPPO HODGEPODGE
They owe their name to the fact that they were established in 2008 and 2009 when Salvatore Ceccarelli and Stefania Grando were working as genetic enhancers for barley at the ICARDA (acronym for International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas) based in Aleppo, Syria.
A small amount of seed from the three populations arrived in Italy in 2010 thanks to the Italian Association for Organic Agriculture (AIAB), and in the hands of the El Tamiso farmers in 2021.
In the case of the seed of durum wheat and soft wheat populations, the name has been changed to Furat, which is the Arabic name for the Euphrates River.
WHY CULTIVATE IT?
Being made up of many different plants, these populations evolve (hence their name), that is, they change from one season to the next because every year natural selection favors the plants most suitable for that soil, that climate, that type of organic agriculture and after a few years they will be perfectly adapted to the place where they are cultivated.
This implies that the organic farmer is able to produce his own seed every year.
When they move to a new location, they change to adapt to those new conditions.
In addition, the extraordinary diversity they contain protects them from diseases, insects and, in the case of cereals, from weeds - this has been demonstrated by scientific research - eliminating the use of chemistry (even that allowed in organic farming), thus making the farmer's task easier and reducing expenses.
safeguarding biodiversity
the loss of biodiversity, the decrease in soil fertility due to erosion, salinization and acidification, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the abandonment of rural territories, social injustice and poor quality of food.
The loss of biodiversity is probably among the most important negative effects, also because the Green Revolution is the opposite of what ecology tells us, namely that:
greater diversity = greater productivity = greater resilience.
Applying this simple relationship to agriculture would mean feeding the world (greater productivity) and absorbing the effects of climate change with less damage.
why eat it?
Bread, biscuits, and crackers produced with Aleppo Mixed wheat flour, and pasta made with durum wheat Aleppo Mixture semolina, both grown organically, offer a solution to the problem because in that bread, in those cookies, and in those crackers there are about 2000 different types of common wheat, and in that pasta dish about 700 different types of durum wheat.
