Page 3 - Cifarelli_Branca_ali_2002

of the old farms still producing (Table 1). Landraces of red oat (Avena byzantina C. Koch, usually considered
as subspecies of A. sativa), a cultivated oat with adaptation to drought stress, corn (‘annurigna’, with red and
dark types, used in the past to prepare the typical ‘semolata’ dish and sometimes also bread) and some
durum wheat were the only cereals still cultivated. The cultivation of durum wheat, with its old varieties
‘senatore Cappelli’, ‘russìa’, ‘tangarò’ (with very big spikes), had essentially ceased, since the milling industry
disappeared from the island. Today wheat is used mainly to feed chickens. Other old wheat landraces,
(probably of bread wheat) which no longer exist are: ‘tripolina’, ‘biancolidda’, ‘Luigi bianco’, ‘bafforusso’,
‘serena’, ‘carrettera’ and ‘marzuddu’. However, two accessions of durum wheat landraces and one of barley
were found and collected.

Sixty-five accessions of vegetables were also gathered. Squash (Cucurbita moschata (Duch. ex Lam.) Duch.
ex Poir., called ‘cucuzza baffa’) is used to prepare the traditional local dishes ‘minestrone’ and ‘sugo alla
morisca’. Typically the ‘cucuzza da’ frizzi’ (C. pepo L.), two green and white landraces of vegetable marrow
are served fried. ‘Cucuzza longa’ a 1-2 m long type of bottle-gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl.
subsp. asiatica (Kob.) Heiser) is consumed on the island both for fruits and for young stem tops and cirri
(called ‘tenerumi’) which remain after pruning and are eaten boiled with pasta (Figure 2). In other Sicilian
areas (e.g. Caltanisetta and Catania districts) the ‘tenerumi’ are the main products of bottle-gourd cultivation,
and flowers are eliminated to increase their yield. Specific varieties of eggplants were observed, each used
for typical local recipes, such as the ‘longarine’ with long fruits for the ‘caponata’ dish and the round fruit
types for a number of other culinary specialities.

Old landraces of tomato, the ‘pizzutello’ or ‘puntidda’ (a round and small type with yellow or red fruits good
for storage), the rare ‘cannatella’ (a long fruit type rarely grown because of the tendency of its fruits to split at
ripening) and the ‘u primintiu’, used for storage after boiling, were collected.
Other vegetable landraces the farmers shared with us were celery (‘accina’), carrot (‘pastinaca’ and the
diuretic type ‘piscialettu’ sown at the end of August and harvested in January), fennel, chicory, endive (‘nivia’
and ‘scarola’), cauliflower, sprouting broccoli (‘marzutello’), spinach, lettuce, watermelon, peppers (with a
wide variability in the fruit morphology), spinach beet (‘giiri’ or ‘giira’), basil (‘baciricò’), onion (big bulbs stored
interlaced) and garlic (with small bulbs). Other old local crops observed but not collected were artichoke
(‘fimminedda’) and sweet potato (‘patata americana’), consumed fried and in a ragout.
Among pulses, only peas (‘a pisedda’) and faba beans (e.g. the black ‘quarantina’ variety harvested in March
and the ‘fava di S. Pantaleo’ harvested one month later) are still widely cultivated in the island, together with
few lentils and green beans. Up to the 1960s grass pea (‘checchine’, Lathyrus sativus L.) and chickpea were
also cultivated here and, according to old farmers, during poor years bread was made using their seeds. The
two very rare accessions of cotton (here called ‘u cuttuni’and ‘mattola’) collected merit a special note (Figure
3). Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum L.) was introduced to Sicily in the ninth century by the Arabs. On
Favignana, the ancient and traditional cultivation of cotton (particularly resistent to salt water and sometimes
used locally for forage before its flowering) ended completely in 1950. However, this mission discovered two
farmers who still grow plants belonging to the old local varieties for family uses and for ornamental purposes.
In 1985, Hammer et al. (1986) collected from some Sicilian house gardens rare relic plants of cotton used for
local production of fibre and as medicinal plants. These findings and the history of cotton in south Italy
suggest that a specific collecting mission should be arranged to find and safeguard the ultimate Sicilian
cotton germplasm before its extinction.

In the ‘la Piana’ area of Favignana, many abandoned tufa quarries are used for cultivation of vegetables and
fruit trees such as citrus fruits, figs, peaches (including the old nectarine ‘usbergo spaccatello’), plum-trees
(with many landraces such as ‘longarine’ and ‘occhio di bue’), pears, apricots, Japan medlars, walnuts and
pomegranates (Figure 4). In the ‘il Bosco’ area, other fruit trees are grown, such as olives, common oranges
(‘brasiliane’ and ‘vaniglia dolce’), white and black (‘Ceuso niuru’) mulberries, the table grapes ‘cardinale’ and
‘lacrima di Maria’ (with long fruits) and the wine grapes ‘grillo’, ‘nave’ and ‘u’ bascedda’ (with very small fruits,
white or black).

The average age of local farmers is 75 years and they represent the relicts of a large farming community
which existed previously on the island. Most of the farmers visited by the collecting team had no successors,
and with their disappearance all local knowledge and the local genetic resources of crop plants will vanish.
All farmers visited were very willing to share information about local names and uses of different crops, and
shared seeds from their seed supplies with the collecting team. The steady decrease in agriculture was
suddenly accelerated two years ago when the European Union defined technical standards for butcher
shops that could not be met by the butchers on the islands. Therefore, the animal husbandry economy was
suddenly lost, which meant the end to most farming on the islands. Many places on the island can only be
used for grazing goats, sheep and cows. Many barley (‘orio’, formerly exported in great quantity) and oat