Recent inception meetings between pasture projects in the Andes

The two Andes CoP projects focused on pastures held inception meetings the same week in January, allowing a pair of representatives from each team to attend the other’s gathering to increase knowledge-sharing and opportunities for research design synergies. The representatives spent half the time with the Forage and Fallows project in Huancayo, Peru, and the rest with the Punas and Pasture project in Huaraz, Peru.

Animals are important for agroecology because they produce highly bioavailable nutrients for soil through their manure. They also provide important nutrients to families’ diet and market opportunities, especially value-added food and fiber products. To often, the pastures that feed the animals, whether natural or sown, are overlooked parts of the landscape when, in fact, they are essential to ecosystem services such as water storage and carbon sequestration.

This short video shows a “knowledge dialogue” between a farmer and researcher that took place during the first inception meeting near Huancayo. Watch the video

here