The Italian Confederation of Farmers (CIA) on Thursday appealed to restaurant owners across the country to include rare native ingredients on their menus in a bid to prevent them disappearing forever.
According to CIA, traditional ingredients that have been used by Italian families for generations are now in danger of vanishing as the number of producers dwindle and market demand continues to drop.
Wild garlic from central Italy, black chickpeas from the Murge in Puglia, kamut grain from southern Italy and pork from the black pigs of the Monti Lepini in Lazio are all on the danger list, according to CIA.
''In Italy at the end of the 1800s there were 8,000 varieties of fruit. Today there are a little fewer than 2,000,'' CIA said.
The confederation added that with 1,800 varieties of apples in Europe, around 80% of Italian demand for the fruit was fulfilled by just four types: Red Delicious and Golden Delicious from America, Granny Smith from Australia and Gala from New Zealand.
''Today only 12 types of vegetables and 14 types of animals feed almost all of humanity,'' CIA said.
''In a century around three quarters of agricultural varieties have disappeared''.
In an effort to promote ingredients at risk of extinction, CIA and the Green Environmental and Society Association (VAS) have organised a Healthy Eating day on Sunday, when representatives of the two organisations will head out onto the streets of Italian cities to persuade people to seek out new varieties of family staples.
''We need to defend the variety of historic vegetables whose seeds risk disappearing and to underline support for a model of agricultural production and consumption that is ecologically sustainable and socially shared,'' CIA said.
