Traditional harvesting in the Arbëreshë community (an Albanian linguistic island in southern Italy)..

A project to collect and safeguard crop genetic resources in Italian linguistic Islands, led by the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources (CNR-IBBR) and the Crop Science Institute of Kassel University (Germany), began in 1996 with a first mission in Italian towns of Albanian origin (Basilicata region). Later, they visited other regions (mainly Calabria, Molise, and Sicily) with the same aim. The Albanian linguistic islands still preserve valuable crop genetic resources which are nowadays severely threatened by genetic erosion.

The main results of these research activities are gathered in the book: "Linguistic Islands and Plant Genetic Resources: the case of Arbëreshë", edited by K. Hammer, G. Laghetti and D. Pignone and published in 2001 by Aracne, Rome, Italy (ISBN 978-88-548-3958-8).

An ancient and typical farmyard for threshing lentils with the aid of animals (Island of Linosa, Sicily, Italy)

Long-term, extensive research is ongoing at the IBBR to collect the crop genetic resources of small agricultural islands in the Mediterranean Sea, with particular attention to crop landraces.

Up to the present, research has focused on the small islands surrounding Sicily (Egadi, Pantelleria, Linosa and Lampedusa, Ustica, Eolie) and Sardinia (S. Pietro, S. Antioco, Asinara, Tavolara, the Maddalena archipelago), on the Tuscanian archipelago, the islands Ponziane (Latium), Ischia and Capri (Campania), the Tremiti islands in the Adriatic Sea, and several small islands in northern Italy (Palmaria and S. Erasmo).

Such research resulted in the publication of several books and catalogs edited by the Italian National Council of Research (see, e.g., "Small Agricultural Islands and Plant Genetic Resources", edited by K. Hammer and G. Laghetti. IGV, CNR, Bari, Italy, 2006 - ISBN 88-900347-4-2)