Local Futures

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
  • Contact
  • Sign up
  • Donate

The Economics of Happiness

Menu
  • About us
    • Local Futures
    • Our team
    • Founder, Helena Norberg-Hodge
    • Get involved
    • Media room
    • Our history
    • Close
  • Projects
    • Connect globally and locally
      • World Localization Day
      • Voices from the Field
      • Localization Action Guide
      • International Alliance for Localization
        • Join the IAL
        • IAL members
          • IAL member organizations
          • IAL Listserv
      • Ladakh Project
      • Planet Local
        • Culture
        • Eco Communities
        • Ecology
        • Health
        • Local Business & Finance
        • Local Energy
        • Local Food, Farming & Fisheries
        • Local Policy & Community Rights
        • Place-based Education
        • Sharing & Repairing
    • Gain a big picture perspective
      • Blog
      • Local Futures Podcast
        • Iain McGilchrist – Rediscovering Wisdom in a World Gone Mad
        • Charles Eisenstein – Towards a New and Ancient Culture
        • Vandana Shiva – The Power of People
        • Mental Health in the Global Economy with Gabor Maté
        • Jeremy Lent: Shifting Paradigms
        • COP, carbon and high-tech: who is setting the agenda?
        • Beyond Conspiracy: Framing Meaningful Activism
        • Unpacking Global Empire from an Indigenous Perspective
        • More than Just the Vegetables
        • Food Sovereignty in the Global Economy
        • Transition, Tradition, and Trade
        • Not-for-Profit Businesses
        • Love, Values, and Wellbeing Economies
        • Growing a Farmers Market from the Ground Up
        • Beautiful Places: A Conversation with Wendell Berry
        • Creating the Framework for a New Economy
        • From GDP to GNH
        • Rebuilding Healthy Communities: The Growing Ecovillage Movement
        • Seeds of Resilience, Seeds of Sovereignty
        • Why Local Ownership Matters
        • Local Alternatives to Globalized Development: A View from India
        • How to Feed the World? A Political Agroecological Approach
        • Helena Norberg-Hodge on how corporate ‘free trade’ deals threaten local communities and economies worldwide
      • Webinars
        • Sacred Activism in a Post-Trump World Webinar
        • Talking Climate Webinar
        • People Power: Democracy and the Economy Webinar
        • Beyond Trump: The Path to Real Change Webinar
        • Bringing the Food Economy Home Webinar
        • A World Without ‘Free’ Trade: What it would look like and how to get there
        • Beyond ‘Free Trade’ – Alternatives to Corporate Rule
        • Education: Promises, Myths & Realities Webinar
        • Debt and Speculation in the Global Economy Webinar
        • A New Activism Webinar
        • Climate Change or System Change Webinar
        • Going Local Webinar
      • Powerful talks
      • Films and short videos
      • Books and reports
    • Close
  • Events
    • Upcoming events
    • Planet Local Summit Bristol 2023
    • World Localization Day
    • Economics of Happiness conferences
    • Other past events
    • Close
  • Action resources
    • Getting the facts
      • Globalization – drivers and impacts
      • Localization – a solution-multiplier
      • Big Picture Activism – rethinking basic assumptions
    • Action tools
      • Localization Action Guide
      • Covid-19 response: let’s localize like never before
      • Maps of alternatives
      • Organizations for change
      • Independent media sources
      • Films for change
      • Recommended readings
    • Close
  • Books, reports & videos
    • Books and reports
      • Life After Progress
      • Local is Our Future
      • Ancient Futures
      • Free reads
      • Translated resources
      • Annual report
    • Films and short videos
      • PLANET LOCAL : A Quiet Revolution
      • LOCAL: A Story of Hope
      • Local Food Can Save The World
      • Going Local: the solution-multiplier
      • Insane Trade!
      • The Economics of Happiness
      • Ancient Futures
    • Close
You are here: Home / Coronavirus / In Peru, ancestral values shine during COVID-19 crisis

In Peru, ancestral values shine during COVID-19 crisis

August 8, 2020 by Melissa Valdivia 1 Comment

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peruvians are facing exceptional challenges as individuals and communities throughout the country confront job losses and food shortages in addition to the virus itself.

However, these difficult times have an upside, in that they bring out the best in each of us, generating acts of solidarity; in the case of Peruvians it shows how ancestral values of solidarity, reciprocity, and balance remain in practice.

One such action is that of the Association of the Communities of the Potato Park, who on May 13th distributed more than 1 ton of native potatoes to migrants and other vulnerable groups in Cusco, including to migrants in quarantine at the local soccer stadium, a Geriatric Center, and Casa Mantay, a shelter for single abused teenage mothers.

The Potato Park is a biocultural heritage territory located in the district of Pisac, Cusco, composed of five indigenous Quechua communities.[1] The area is globally renowned for its work conserving native potato (they conserve more than 1,300 varieties of potato, making the area home to the greatest diversity of potato found anywhere in the world) and has recently been recognized as an Agrobiodiversity Zone by the Ministry of Agriculture of Peru. The coronavirus has yet to arrive in these communities, but even so, the farmers have implemented exceptional health and safety measures.

Despite COVID-19, the harvest this year has been strong. “This is the result of 20 years of consistent work in re-localizing our food system, which ensured sufficient supply of healthy foods,” explained Mariano Sutta Apocusi, a local expert from the community of Pamapallaqta. “Focusing on the local has helped us to improve access to and affordability of a great diversity of food products, especially native potatoes, quinoa, kiwicha, other Andean tubers, and maize, which we cultivate using indigenous agroecological methods,” noted Sutta.

As part of their efforts, the Potato Park has also created responses to climate change, the other crisis hitting hard Andean communities, using old Inca strategies for caring for the environment, particularly for conserving native biodiversity, food-producing habitats, and natural water systems. “This has been fundamental for our food and nutrition security,” said Ricardina Paco Condori, a local expert from the community of Paru Paru. “Healthy land produces healthy foods; and farming native crops is much better because we know these strengthen our immunity and resistance to diseases like COVID-19.”

Assuring healthy food for the entire population, however, will require changes in agricultural and food policies. “The pandemic is directly connected to the current global food system, and its corporate nature is creating a parallel food crisis that has deepened the misery of millions of people worldwide” says Cesar Argumedo, Director of Asociación ANDES of Cusco.[2] “To prevent further suffering, our government needs to ensure that trade and investment agreements do not undermine local food systems, but instead promote respect for human rights, sustainable livelihoods, and food sovereignty. The Potato Park is showing us that the most significant wealth that we have as a country is our traditional Andean agriculture and food system, not only for the high quality food it produces but because it carries the values that we badly need to pull us out of this crisis. This is the right moment to re-value and strengthen it,” concludes Argumedo.

Lorenzo Huayta Bayona, the president of the Association of the Communities of the Potato Park asserts that “the potatoes that we bring today to our brothers and sisters who lack food in Cusco is a demonstration of Ayni, the Andean principle of solidarity and reciprocity which we have practiced since Incan times. Our food systems are profoundly connected to the principles of Ayllu (community), Ayni (reciprocity), and Chaninchay (equity), and these define our economy, health, and well-being. Our native potato is helping us to maintain these practices and encourages us to do more Ayni.” said Bayona.

“The government should recognize the biocultural heritage of our ancestors and promote agriculture and food system with values as part of implementing the Right to Food. We hope that with these potatoes that we are sharing today, we are contributing to reorienting the response to the current crisis towards the Andean principles of solidarity and reciprocity. Thank you, potato” concluded Aniceto Ccoyo Ccoyo, a local expert from the community of Saccaca.

 

[1] The Potato Park is composed of five indigenous communities: Amaru, Chawaytire, Pamapallaqta, Paru Paru, and Saccaca. Its work focuses on the promotion of Food Neighborhoods, protection of indigenous rights, and the creation of innovative livelihood options.

[2] Asociación ANDES is an NGO based in Cusco, Peru that supports the Potato Park with independent research, coordination, and capacity building.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Related

What does self-reliance really mean? Amazing stories from India’s villages
What Indigenous Wisdom Can Teach Us About Economics

Filed Under: Community, Coronavirus, Environment, Food and Farming, Free Trade and Globalization, Indigenous worldview Tagged With: agriculture, community, culture, farming, indigenous, local food, trade agreements

Author: Melissa Valdivia

Melissa Valdivia is a reporter for El Comercio, the most influential newspaper in Peru.

Comments

  1. Michael Baker says

    August 9, 2020 at 2:03 am

    Thank you for sharing this information on the situation in Peru.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept the Privacy Policy

Subscribe to the Economics of Happiness Blog

Sign up for our email updates

Latest Blogs

  • Why we must abolish the Energy Charter Treaty

    January 27, 20231 Comment
  • Humility and the myth of limitlessness

    January 12, 20231 Comment
  • Hin Lad Nai: A Successful Model of Indigenous Resistance

    January 4, 20234 Comments
  • Ecological Economics

    December 21, 20221 Comment
  • Chak Chok: a campaign against junk food

    December 14, 20222 Comments
  • Low-tech solutions

    November 30, 20223 Comments

Blog posts by Category

  • Capitalism (10)
  • Cities (4)
  • Climate Change (60)
  • Community (34)
  • Consumerism (6)
  • Coronavirus (19)
  • Corporate power (3)
  • Democracy (4)
  • Development (24)
  • Economic Growth and Degrowth (35)
  • Economics (1)
  • Economics of Happiness Conferences (4)
  • Education (9)
  • Energy (6)
  • Environment (47)
  • Food and Farming (80)
  • Free Trade and Globalization (47)
  • Happiness (6)
  • Health (30)
  • Indigenous worldview (19)
  • Inequality (8)
  • Inner transformation (17)
  • Livelihoods and jobs (39)
  • Local energy (9)
  • Local finance (6)
  • Local food (21)
  • Localization (57)
  • Nature (6)
  • New economy (20)
  • Resistance and Renewal (20)
  • Technology (42)
  • The Economics of Happiness (17)
  • Transportation (2)
  • Uncategorized (4)
  • War (2)

Local Futures logo

About us
Contact
Blog
Store
Annual report
Privacy policy

Sign up to our newsletter

Donate

Local Futures © Copyright 2023 | site by digiflip
 

Loading Comments...