Dan Collyns - Peru’s potato museum could stave off world food crisis
With a climate changing
faster than most crops can adapt and food security under threat around the
world, scientists have found hope in a living museum dedicated to a staple
eaten by millions daily: the humble potato. High in the Peruvian
Andes, agronomists are looking to the ancestral knowledge of farmers to
identify genetic strains which could help the tubers survive increasingly
frequent and intense droughts, floods and frosts.
The Potato Park in
Cusco is a 90 sq km (35 sq mile) expanse ranging from 3,400 to 4,900 metres
(16,000 feet) above sea level. It has “maintained one of the highest
diversities of native potatoes in the world, in a constant process of
evolution,” says Alejandro Argumedo, the founder of Asociación Andes, an NGO which supports the
park.
“By sowing potatoes at
different altitudes and in different combinations, these potatoes create new
genetic expressions which will be very important to respond to the challenges
of climate change.” Under a cobalt sky by
an icy mountain lagoon, a father and his son-in-law hoe thick brown soil. They
pull out reddish potatoes and throw them into waiting sacks.
The pucasawsiray potatoes they
gather are among the 1,367 varieties in the park, which lies in the Sacred
Valley of the Incas. The intensely cultivated patchwork of tiny fields and
graded terraces is a living laboratory of potato diversity....
