PERU:
Women - The Guardians of
Potato Biodiversity
By Milagros Salazar
HUAMA, Cuzco, Peru
(IPS) - In South
America’s Andes mountain
region, indigenous women
have traditionally been
responsible for
selecting, conserving
and managing seed
potatoes from the
countless native
varieties of the crop,
thus ensuring diversity
and continued production
while contributing to
food security among
their people.
The conservation of
thousands of native
varieties of the potato
(Solanum tuberosum),
each with its own unique
taste, nutritional value
and climate-resistant
traits, has taken on
greater importance than
ever this year. One of
the reasons behind the
current global food
crisis is that human
survival is currently
dependent on just a
handful of plant
species, experts warn.
Surrounded by a group of
men, Natividad Pilco, a
44-year-old Peruvian
woman, digs into the
soil with the zeal of
someone seeking buried
treasure. And she finds
it.
"This potato is called
‘oke suito’ (long bluish
potato) and it’s good
for boiling. This one
here is ‘yana bole’
(round black potato) and
it’s used in soups
because it’s sweet," she
explains.
Pilca is a member of a
group of 40 families
dedicated to the
conservation of native
potato varieties in the
highlands community of
Huama, located more than
4,000 metres above sea
level and a two-hour
drive from the city of
Cuzco in southern Peru.
It is now the harvest
season, when the women
of Huama accompany their
husbands to the fields
to help pick potatoes
and to select the best
ones for feeding their
families.
Pilco and the other
women from the village
clearly demonstrate that
they know more than the
men about the use of
each kind of potato. Her
husband, Camilo Huaraca,
one of Huama’s most
experienced
conservationists, stands
back and smiles while
she explains: "These big
potatoes are for eating,
these middle-sized ones
are better for use as
seeds, and these ones,
which are slightly
bitter, are good for
making ‘chuño’
(freeze-dried
potatoes)."
"Chuño" is prepared with
a traditional method of
preserving and storing
potatoes for long
periods of time. First
the women freeze the
potatoes overnight in
the intense cold of the
Andean highlands. Then
they dehydrate them by
squashing them flat and
laying them out on the
roofs of their houses to
dry in the sun.
Women are responsible
for the continued
preparation of
traditional dishes like
this in the kitchen, but
their role in the potato
production process
begins in the fields.
It is women who select
the potatoes that will
be used as seeds for
future crops, a task
that is essential to
ensuring the continued
diversity of potato
varieties. They also
participate in the
actual planting, and in
managing the stocks of
harvested and stored
potatoes.
"We help with the
planting by selecting
the seed potatoes,
bringing the fertiliser,
sowing the seeds and
covering them with
soil," said peasant
farmer Regina Illamarca,
who was working with her
young son slung over her
back in a colourful
poncho. In the Andes,
the entire family is
involved in raising
crops.
In some Andean highland
communities in southern
Peru, like Ccaritamaya
in Puno, only women can
place the seed potatoes
in the furrows, the
heads of that village
explained in a survey
conducted by the United
Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation
(FAO).
For centuries, women
have been traditionally
associated with the
planting of seeds and
growing of crops in
rural areas.
Researchers Mario Tapia
and Ana de la Torre
point out in their book
"La mujer campesina y
las semillas andinas"
(Peasant Women and Seeds
in the Andes) that the
deities in this region’s
culture are largely
female. The supreme
deity is Pachamama, or
"Mother Earth" in the
Quechua indigenous
language.
Women also actively
participate in the
rituals performed to
guarantee successful
harvests. In Ccaritamaya,
women of child-bearing
age use incense to act
out a symbolic first
sowing as an offering to
Pachamama.
The engravings by
Peruvian historian
Felipe Guamán Poma de
Ayala, dating back to
the era of the Spanish
"conquest", show women
placing seed potatoes
and corn kernels in the
soil at the height of
the planting season.
In their book, Tapia and
de la Torre compare the
home, where women take
care of seeds and the
food that is harvested,
with the womb.
"In Andean (indigenous)
thinking, men deposit
the seed, and women
receive it (whether in
the womb or the home),
store it and care for
it. In other words, they
are responsible for it
until it leaves their
domain once again, to be
planted in the fields,"
they recount.
FAO reports that women
have been responsible
for selecting countless
varieties of potatoes to
preserve and enhance
crop diversity, which
has made it possible to
plant them in different
agro-ecological regions
and to withstand pests,
diseases and climate
change.
Tapia and de la Torre
note that there have
even been cases
discovered where the
oldest women in the
communities are in
charge of breeding new
varieties of potatoes to
increase diversity and
make it possible to
select the best strains
for planting.
For this same purpose,
"seed fairs" are held in
the Andes, where women
play a vital role in
sharing and exchanging
different varieties.
These efforts to ensure
survival through
diversity have a global
dimension. As Tapia and
de la Torre note,
"humankind depends on
the world’s biological
resources for survival,
and biodiversity offers
the possibility of
increasing food
supplies."
Prepared in an endless
range of forms, the
potato has been
incorporated into the
culinary traditions of
almost every region on
the planet. It is the
fourth most important
human staple food, after
corn, wheat and rice.
More than 323 million
tons of potatoes are
produced annually around
the world.
As well as being packed
with vitamins, minerals
and carbohydrates, the
potato is also the most
protein-rich tuber,
according to FAO.
Although scientists
working in laboratories
use their own techniques
to preserve the potato,
"the conservation work
done by these peasant
farmers is much more
important, because they
maintain diversity in a
living and dynamic
form," said María
Scurrah, a geneticist at
the non-governmental
International Potato
Centre (CIP).
The CIP, based in Lima,
houses a potato
germplasm bank that
contains seeds, tissue
cultures and plants
representing close to
4,500 varieties of
potato from the Andean
region, over half of
which are native to
Peru.
"Our women are important
in the fields, in the
harvest, in the
selection of seed
potatoes, and in
business. If I come to
work the land, I have to
coordinate everything
with my wife," stressed
the president of the
conservationists in
Huama, Rafael Pilco.
The business savvy of
these peasant women is
recognised by the entire
community. In Huama,
over the last three
years, they have been
responsible for selling
20,000 kilos of native
potatoes to two of the
top hotels in Cuzco.
Although an agreement
signed with the hotel
chains establishes that
each kilo of potatoes is
bought for barely half a
dollar, the women insist
that they always try to
get the best price
possible.
"The men don’t know how
to sell, they’ll give up
the potatoes for next to
nothing," exclaimed
Illamarca, with an
accusatory glance at her
husband, Narciso Tilca.
The relationship between
indigenous highlands
women and this food
staple is also linked to
social status. The more
a peasant woman knows
about the culinary
preparation, diversity
and conservation of
potatoes, the greater
her prestige in the
community.
As a result, it is
common for
mothers-in-law to put
the cooking skills of
their daughters-in-law
to the test by getting
them to peel potatoes
with tricky shapes.
Tapia emphasized that
peasant women need
support and especially
information about the
need to offer their
families varied and
nutritious food, so that
the ancestral knowledge
passed down through
generations is enhanced
by modern approaches. |
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