Medicinal and aromatic plants in agricultural research, when considering criteria of multifunctionality and sustainability

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, agriculture has witnessed significant changes in terms of energy requirements, advanced technologies and practices. This is in response to the impacts of crop production on the climate and environment and increasing awareness of the importance of agricultural sustainability through organic farming. Agriculture encompasses complex production systems and certain aspects of multifunctionality and sustainability have become fundamental for these systems. Agricultural activity can provide various functions in agro-ecosystems, such as producing food, managing natural resources, and conserving landscape and plant biodiversity; contributing to the cultural, historical and economic viability of rural areas. Agriculture must now adopt scientific innovations in order to produce food which takes into consideration not only human well-being and the environment but also the requirements of farmers. Aromatic and medicinal plants (MAPs), as open field crops, can play an important role in multifunctional and sustainable agriculture, due to low energy requirements for cultivation and their many uses, from the production of nutraceuticals, phytonutrients and phytotherapy to land valorization. Various MAPs are used in the food sector to flavor foods or prolong shelf-life while others are used in modern and traditional medicine in the production of phytocomplexes for human health and well-being. The cultivation of MAPs, when based on an integrated and sustainable approach, can contribute to the conservation and increase of biodiversity in agro-ecosystems, as well as to the recovery of degraded and marginal lands. This Special Issue of Agriculture on “Medicinal and aromatic plants in agricultural research, when considering multifunctionality and sustainability criteria” aims to illustrate the role of MAPs in agriculture under low-impact farming practices and the benefits they can generate in terms of functional products. This Special Issue accepts contributions that cover all research aspects related to MAPs and a number of scientific macro-areas can also be included, such as agronomy, chemistry and pharmacy, ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology, food and nutrition, and ecology.