PERU:
Preserving the Potato in
Its Birthplace
By Milagros Salazar
CUZCO, Peru (IPS) -
Thousands of varieties
of potato (Solanum
tuberosum), one of the
most widely-eaten and
well-known foods in the
world, have been
developed in the heart
of South America’s Andes
mountains, where the
crop was domesticated
more than 8,000 years
ago.
Peru is home to the
world’s biggest
germplasm bank of
potatoes, containing
seeds, tissue culture
and plants from 5,000
varieties.
The biologists,
geneticists and
agronomic engineers
working with the
non-profit International
Potato Centre (CIP),
which began to collect
samples in Lima in 1971,
carry out lab and field
research with the help
of rural communities.
Of the 4,500 native and
500 improved or modern
varieties preserved by
the CIP, more than 2,500
are native to Peru.
U.S. taxonomist David
Spooner at the
University of
Wisconsin-Madison
determined that all
modern varieties of
potato can be traced
back to a single species
that originated in what
is now southern Peru,
between the south Andean
region of Cuzco and the
altiplano (highlands)
shared with Bolivia, CIP
biologist Ana Panta
explained to IPS.
POTATO PARK
"We are raising these
organic potatoes for our
children, our families.
We don't use fertilisers,
only manure," Mario Paco
Gallegos, president of
the Paru Paru community
and vice president of
the Association of
Potato Park Communities
in Cuzco, the ancient
Inca capital, told IPS.
Gallegos represents one
of the six communities
that agreed in late 2004
to work with the CIP to
help preserve the crop
and guarantee its
sustainable use, based
on the application of
scientific research and
the recovery of
traditional indigenous
knowledge.
The agreement gave rise
to the Potato Park,
where some 10,000
hectares are covered
with "layme" or "muyuy"
-- fields worked
communally by indigenous
"campesino" (peasant)
communities --
interspersed with ponds
and streams, in the
Sacred Valley of the
Incas.
When IPS visited the
Potato Park, campesino
men and women from the
community of Paru Paru
carrying picks and hoes
awaited the team of
researchers accompanying
us: CIP agronomist René
Gómez and members of the
non-governmental
Asociación Andes.
The task that brought
them together was the
construction of a
community greenhouse for
the preservation of
seeds.
The Potato Park is home
to 1,200 families --
some 6,700 people --
according to the
Asociación Andes.
IPS and the other
visitors were shown a
kind of open air
germplasm bank under a
bluish roof. Between 620
and 640 varieties of
potato are planted at
altitudes of 3,950 to
4,400 metres above sea
level, Gómez explained.
Around 410 of these were
"repatriated" from the
CIP gene bank after
being cleaned of viruses
and pests.
Gómez, the curator of
the CIP’s potato
germplasm collection,
pointed out the
difference in
productivity: the seeds
cleaned of viruses can
produce up to 18 tons
per hectare, compared to
just six tons for
traditional campesino
crops, and a national
average of 12 tons per
hectare.
The Potato Park uses a
crop rotation system,
allowing fields to
periodically lie fallow
to recover soil
fertility.
According to the United
Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation
(FAO), potatoes are
grown on 600,000 small
farms covering a total
of 260,000 hectares in
Peru.
MUCH MORE THAN A LIVING
MUSEUM
"We have the
responsibility to
protect the world’s
largest collection of
potatoes," said CIP
director Pamela Anderson
in Lima. "This task is
ongoing and will not
end, and also involves
the dynamic conservation
of the crop, through our
work with rural
communities.
"The idea is to return
their potatoes, their
treasure, to them so
that they can preserve
the crop’s
biodiversity," she told
IPS, stressing the
support received from
the Italian government
in particular.
In the last five years,
the CIP has
"repatriated",
virus-free, 25 percent
of the native varieties
of potato from more than
30 highlands
communities, said
Anderson.
The CIP is like a museum
that conserves varieties
of the seven original
species that began to be
domesticated 8,000 years
ago, as well as 150
kinds of wild potatoes,
their ancestors, in test
tubes, cold chambers and
even the fields, said
Panta.
Centuries of food
history are displayed in
trays on a table, with
potatoes of all colours
and shapes -- blue,
purple, yellow, red,
gold, russet, speckled,
round, clustered, long,
oval, pear-shaped --
identified by their
traditional names in the
Quechua and Aymara
languages, alongside
their scientific names.
The native names are as
colourful as the
potatoes themselves. One
bumpy, cluster-like
potato is known as "pusi
qachun waqachi" or
"makes the
daughter-in-law cry".
Panta explained that the
name derives from an
indigenous tradition:
"When a future
mother-in-law wants to
test the woman who is
going to marry her son,
she gives her this
potato to peel. If she
can peel it without
damaging the pulp, it
means she is a good cook
and will be able to take
good care of her son."
COLOURS AND FLAVOURS
Native potatoes in Peru
come in at least nine
different colours. But
the differences go
beyond skin-deep, and
also lie in their
flavour, the way they
are used, their
nutritional value and
their resistance to
different kinds of
weather conditions.
Some have drawn the
attention of the world
of haute cuisine, as
exotic ingredients, and
have been used in
international
exhibitions because of
their flavours, such as
last year’s
MadridFusión07: V
International Gastronomy
Summit in Spain, which
showcased the Peruvian
potato as one of the
world’s seven most
important ingredients.
The nutritional value of
the potato is also
celebrated. FAO has
invited chefs and cooks
from around Latin
America to share
original recipes in
which the potato is the
basic ingredient, as
part of its Chefs
Against Hunger programme.
The recipes will be
published in the
programme’s first
International Cookbook,
one of the activities
planned for 2008,
declared the
International Year of
the Potato by the United
Nations.
PROTEIN, VITAMINS AND
ENERGY
Boiled, stewed, roasted,
fried, dried, mashed,
grated, stuffed or
converted into flour,
potatoes have been
adapted to culinary
traditions all over the
planet. They are the
fourth-largest staple
food crop in the world,
after maize, wheat and
rice, with annual global
output amounting to more
than 323 million tons.
The potato is rich in
several micronutrients,
especially vitamin C and
vitamins B1, B3 and B6,
and in minerals like
potassium, magnesium and
phosphorus. Its protein
content is also very
high in comparison with
other roots and tubers,
according to the FAO,
making it an important
food source for the poor
in Peru.
But while the potato
still forms the base of
the diet of impoverished
highland Indians,
consumption of potatoes
in Peru has dropped over
the last 30 years to 120
kilos per person a year
to just 65. The
government, which has
set itself a goal of
bringing that total back
up to 100 kilos per
person, is promoting the
baking of bread with
potato flour.
Private companies and
supermarkets are also
offering more and more
potato products in
attractive packages,
like flakes and
specially selected and
packed fresh potatoes of
a wide range of native
varieties.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Farmers say potato crops
are feeling the effects
of climate change. This
year, unusual drought
and snowfall patterns
hurt production in many
areas.
In addition, "diseases
and pests are spreading
as the climate warms up.
Our potatoes used to be
healthy," said Paco
Gallegos, who pointed
out that farmers are
planting their crops at
higher and higher
altitudes, to avoid the
heat.
Diversity is important
in that respect, because
some varieties are more
resistant to certain
climate conditions than
others.
"In this harvest, our
production is
insufficient," Justino
Zuta, "varayoc"
(traditional leader) of
the community of
Pampallacta, told IPS
worriedly as he
harvested "Compish"
potatoes with the help
of his four-year-old son
Rosinaldo.
He pulled several
worm-infested and tiny
potatoes from the huge
heap that he had dug up
over the course of a
12-hour workday.
The living conditions of
these small potato
farmers must be
improved, because "the
big beneficiaries are
the more than 820
million people suffering
from hunger in the
world," FAO
representative in Peru,
Jean-François Ghyoot,
told IPS. "In Latin
America alone, there are
more than 52 million
malnourished people."
Potatoes can contribute
much more than they
already do "to food
security on the planet,"
he added.
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