**Acknowledgements**

portant role in the production of quality food. In this case, the national germplasm will play an important role in the recovery of our small farming system. Participatory plant breeding is the tool necessary to take advantage of our rich maize germplasm collected in the 70's and preserved in our Portuguese Plant Gene Bank (BPGV), or in same cases still present at our farmers fields. Without such an investment in breeding, to raise their yielding capability to reasonable levels, our genetic resources will remain in a useless tomb or vanish definitely

In scientific terms, we foresee that with this new multidisciplinary team of young scientists new findings will came along, especially at understanding the genetics of important agro‐ nomical and quality traits that will translate into improved high quality varieties. The role of this quality oriented varieties, either under open pollination or hybrid form, will fit in a new agricultural system oriented to quality tourism, where maize will represent only a piece, as important as it may be, within this system. Entertainment, like the traditional "desfolhadas" (harvest festivities), historical, architecture, archeological and cultural attractions, together with the combined restoration of old water mills and cob stores, all of this complemented

The potential fixation of our farmers, consequence of the economic recovery, will benefit the most the environment (water management, soil conservation, genetic resources preser‐ vation, and the control of forest fires). Farmers will always be the breeder's best allies and the best curators of our genetic resources. New genetic and analytical tools are now avail‐ able that can help the traditional plant breeding methodologies. Sustainable, quality orient‐ ed, and environmental friendly agriculture still has a role to play in countries like Portugal

Nevertheless this extended PPB project was only possible due to funding obtained through several national (from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, POCI/AGR/ 57994/2004, PTDC/AGR-AAM/70845/2006, PTDC/AGR-ALI/099285/2008) and international (FP7 program, SOLIBAM project) research projects of limited duration. Its survival depends on finding sustainable ways of self-support that may be obtained by higher marketing of im‐ prove quality varieties, maintaining genetic diversity, with increased market value, more at‐

So, further supportive actions to market creation and market promotion should be taken. As adapted from [6] to our national reality, partnerships should be built or strengthen through the organization of meetings involving market-chain stakeholders to discuss how to change market potential. Niche markets for traditional landraces raw materials or traditional land‐ races food products (maize bread) should be further exploit. This is the case of the gluten intolerant market, to which the 100% maize bread can be an attractive alternative. Also, the general market should be aimed with media advertisement campaigns to improve consumer awareness of important nutritional or ecological-friendly traits from traditional landraces, for example, using the summary of the research project activities. On the same level, an ecolabeling of products (such as the maize bread) obtained from traditional landraces as a com‐ mitment to the preservation of biodiversity, could call the attention of consumers. As already highlighted above, the ecological practices of traditional production systems, where

from our farm land.

280 Plant Breeding from Laboratories to Fields

and beyond.

tractive to the final consumer.

with folkloric music will complete the system.

This research was financially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portu‐ gal (presently by PTDC/AGR-ALI/099285/2008 and Pest-OE/EQB/LA0004/2011) and by the European Commission FP7 SOLIBAM project.
