Seeds and Schools
Lead Organization:
Fundacion para el Desarrollo Agrario
Partner Organizations:
Centro Andino de Educacion y Promocion Jose Maria Arguedas (CADEP), Centro de Investigacions de Zonas Aridas (CIZA), Centro de Ciencia y Tecnologia en los Andes (CCTA), Central Peruana de Servicios - CEPESER, Instituto de Desarrollo y Medio Ambiente (IDMA)
Community of Practice:
Countries:
Peru
Duration:
5/2016—5/2019
Overview:
Expert management of the vast agrobiodiversity of native crops in the Andes has been essential to the survival of Andean farmers over the millennia in an often harsh and variable mountain climate. It is forecast that agricultural productivity in the Peruvian Andes will fall between 10–20 percent, with an increase of 3°C predicted by 2050. The examples of genetic and cultural erosion documented among many Andean people is thus worrisome. Farmers’ conservation practices for their native crops, which contribute to “evolutionary resilience,” need to be better understood as well as improved and supported going forward. Many studies exist on the conservation of diversity of native crop varieties in Andean regions of Peru, but few quantify intraspecific diversity. In terms of traditional seed exchange systems in Andean crops, studies exist that date back to the 1990s, but few have been made across spatial scales in the context of future climate scenarios and even fewer have been incorporated into conservation proposals based on the management of agrobiodiversity. Therefore, it is necessary to document the sociocultural and ecological factors underlying the management of intra-specific crop diversity for both its recovery as well as to inform new local strategies for climate change adaptation. Cultural erosion processes are affecting the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, which is mainly oral in Andean cultures. School plays a role in the transmission of knowledge to young people, although, in general, school devalues the local knowledge present in rural areas. This project aims to leverage the work done among participating institutions that have studied the mechanisms of transmission of knowledge at school by using intercultural approaches and incorporating ancestral traditions and knowledge and its relation to farmers and local authorities.
Grant Aims:
The aim of the project is to generate knowledge about the relationship between systems management and conservation of native plant agrobiodiversity (potato and associated crops) with special emphasis on exchange (or networks) of seeds and traditional knowledge in three sites: the Northern Andes (Piura), Central Andes (Huánuco), and Southern (Apurimac). In a context of increasing environmental vulnerability because of climate change, the project will establish bridges of communication and exchange with local schools to highlight the role of these in the transmission of knowledge, especially in relation to the flow of seeds. The project will promote greater generation and dissemination of comprehensive public policies that contribute to enhancing these processes to ensure the resilience and sustainability of Andean farming communities, crop productivity, and food security for present and future generations as part of adaptation to climate change.
Outputs and Outcomes:
- To contribute to the knowledge of the underpinning mechanisms of in-situ conservation of agrobiodiversity, its components, and the associated traditional knowledge, with special emphasis on exchange (or networks) of seeds in the context of environmental uncertainty typical of high mountains now under climate change
- To promote mechanisms of transmission of knowledge related to native plant agrobiodiversity from conservationists and rural farmers to youth and school children of Andean communities
- To promote the formulation of public policies that favor strengthening local Andean experience in managing agrobiodiversity and the role of schools in transmitting traditional knowledge related to it in a context of climate change in the Andean region