Edible Flora as a Sustainable Resource for World Food

Abstract

The components with the greatest presence and permanence in ecosystems are vascular plants. It is estimated that there are between 300,000 and 500,000 species of higher plants (bryophytes, gymnosperms, ferns, angiosperms and lycophytes), some of them are edible. Anthropological vestiges show that, since prehistoric times, edible plants have been key to human nutrition. Currently, productive and environmental factors limit food production. This review presents an analysis of the subject of the use of edible flora as a resource for food production. For which the state of the main factors that affect the agri-food production system is discussed, considering the agricultural information of the eight main countries of origin of the domestication of plant species. This allows us to understand how edible flora becomes a resource for research on new crops despite environmental threats caused mainly by climate change.