A Novel Crop Shortlisting Method for Sustainable Agricultural Diversification Across EU (Italy)

In order to shortlist possible options from a pool of 2700 crops, a crop-climate-soil matching ex-ercise was performed across Italian territory and crops with more than 70% suitability where chosen for further analysis. In the second phase, a multicriteria ranking index was employed to assign ranks to chosen crops of 4 main types; (i) cereals and pseudocereals, (ii) legumes, (iii) starchy roots/ tubers and (iv) vegetables. In order to provide a comprehensive analysis, major crops that are grown in the region where also included in the analysis. The results of evaluation of 4 major criteria (a) calorie and nutrition demand b) functions and uses c) availability and acces-sibility to their genomic material d) possession of adaptive traits, and e) physiological traits) re-vealed the potential for teff, faba bean, cowpea, green arrow arum, Jerusalem artichoke, Fig-leaved Gourd and Watercress.