History of Tomato Cultivation in Chile: The Limachino Tomato Case

Abstract

Landraces play an important role in agricultural sustainability, food security and the future crop improvement. Systematic information about agricultural evolution of crops is crucial for the implementation of effective conservation and utilization strategies. Unlike Europe and North America, historical data of crops is less complete in other parts of the world, especially for regions where high diversity of crop genetic resources, such as Chile. In order to contribute to the understanding of Chilean genetic resources dynamics and their conservation, we present the case of tomato landraces, particularly the Limachino tomato. Through an extensive literature review, an overview is presented regarding the tomato origin and diversification, in situ conservation status, the role of the genetic resource’s units and the importance of the integration of the small-scale commercially-oriented tomato farmers in the modern Chile to advance towards a more effective and sustainable landraces conservation.