Twenty Years of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems

Andean Agriculture, Cusco–Puno Corridor, Peru

Dynamically conserved Indigenous Peoples’ agricultural knowledge of resilience and adaptation for over 5 000 years

THE SYSTEM

The Andean Agriculture, Cusco–Puno Corridor in Peru is an outstanding example of farmers’ wisdom and adaptation capacity that allows them to live in harmony with their ecosystems. The system comprises remarkable structures and practices, including terraces, ridges, irrigation systems and traditional agricultural tools, crops and livestock spread over different altitudes.

The Andean Agriculture, Cusco–Puno Corridor is a network of cities, territories and rural populations that have preserved their agroengineering practices for over five millennia in high Andean ecosystems that range between 2 500 and 5 000 metres. The social and cultural practices of farmers promote responsive, harmonious and respectful management of the environment: key factors that have achieved advances in agricultural management and food security.

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE

The communities in the Cusco–Puno Corridor maintain a form of social organization with its own rules and regulations, recognized by the law of peasant communities. Minca, or voluntary collective work, is a tradition where the whole community comes together, to plough, harvest, package and process agricultural products.

A communal approach to work shows that agriculture holds great sociocultural significance for the communities in the Andean Agriculture, Cusco–Puno Corridor. Their traditions and cultural rituals acknowledge and pay tribute to the environment that provides food for them, such as the celebration of Pachamama (Mother Earth) and the apus (local gods represented by hills, mountains, rivers and atmospheric phenomena).

The area is rich in agrobiodiversity, thanks to the maintenance of traditional agricultural systems and the use of ancestral knowledge to interpret environmental signals (biological, atmospheric and astronomical indicators).

PERU
Farmers harvesting potatoes in the Andean agricultural system
©FAO/LIANA JOHN

After the designation as GIAHS, women are strengthened, empowered and better organized thanks to several female activity groups that have been established to promote local women in that area.

Valentina Avilés Tapara A farmer in Cusco Region, Peru

The crop rotation system has also been used by traditional communities as an important component of soil management to avoid soil depletion and overexploitation of resources. Every year, crops on communal land are rotated in a cycle that can last five to twenty years. Different seeding times are traditional practices applied to reduce the climatic risks.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Since the designation of the Andean Agriculture, Cusco–Puno Corridor, in Peru in 2011:

• The area has recovered crop diversity and variability through the strengthening of traditional practices and remuneration mechanisms.
• The communities’ agrobiodiversity products have been promoted in local markets.
• Traditional agrobiodiversity knowledge has been included in educational institutions. Grandparents, parents and children participate to strengthen the handing on of intergenerational traditional knowledge, further contributing to valuing of their culture and livelihoods.
• Meetings have been held with young farmers to involve them, and to engage their interest in conserving agrobiodiversity, and combining sustainable traditional agricultural methods with innovative ones.
• Increased participatory management of risks affecting the conservation of agrobiodiversity, ecosystems, traditional knowledge and culture.
• Increased participatory management of risks affecting the conservation of agrobiodiversity, ecosystems, traditional knowledge and culture.
• Participation in developing strategic management plans: concerted development plans, municipal environmental commissions, environmental management instruments.
• Inclusion of a series of lessons on traditional knowledge in local education curricula.

PERU
A woman conserving quinoa in the Andean agricultural system
©SIPAM/FAO/MINAM/ALIPIO CANAHUA

RESOURCES

Latin America and the Caribbean | Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations | GIAHS | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (fao.org)