Traditiovations: Creating innovation from the past and antique techniques for rural areas

Many agricultural activities are today considered unsustainable for the presence of a large number of externalities involving environment and human health. Almost paradoxically, the future of a modern agriculture seems to be linked also to a return to the past and to a re-appropriation of marginalized, ignored or lost traditions on the base of local cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. These clusters of traditions may represent a precondition to innovate and foster local development generating, thanks also to the support of science and research, innovative practices and techniques deriving from past traditional knowledge or re-invented techniques. Critical analysis and validation of these antique practices by science and research are the prerequisite for the development of Traditiovations: in this article two examples of such Traditiovations are identified and described in which practices and techniques, deriving from historical or past traditional knowledge, show the capability to operate as innovations, despite their apparently obsolete and out-of-date features, in production and management.

► Traditiovations are defined as tools to produce innovation from local past knowhow. ► We provide two examples of such traditiovations in two different operative fields. ► We describe how traditiovations may solve specific needs in an efficient way. ► Traditiovations are examples of positive link between science and local knowhow. ► They may support local economy through links between research and local communities.