From: "Klaus Wiegand" <WIEGAND@lufa-sp.vdlufa.de>
Organization: Landw. U.-& Forsch.-Anstalt Speyer
To: sanet-mg@cals.ncsu.edu
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 17:00:14 +0200
Subject: The Machu Picchu Model: Climate Change and Agricultural
Diversit
The following is provided from Native Americas special-issue on
"Global Warming, Climate Change and Native Lands," Vol. XVI No.
3&4. Published by Akwe:kon Press at Cornell University's
American Indian Program, Native Americas keeps you informed of
issues and events that impact indigenous communities throughout
the hemisphere. You can find more information on this topic, as
well as how to subscribe to Native Americas at our website,
http://www.nativeamericas.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Machu Picchu Model: Climate Change and Agricultural Diversity
By Craig Benjamin/Native Americas Journal
+ Copyright 2000
Above a small village on the steep slopes of the Andes, a Quechua
farmer holds a half dozen potatoes cupped in his hands. The seed
potatoes are red, blue, and brown. The translucent sprouts that
have started to emerge in preparation for planting are tinged
with purple and gold.
Four factors-geography, sunlight, temperature, and rainfall-and
their interplay are critical to farming. Global warming or any
other form of dramatic climate change will have a profound impact
on this equation.
The air is often crisp and cool when the Quechua farmer plants
his seed potatoes. But what would happen if the weather at
planting time was hot and humid or if heavy rainfalls were to
wash away the thin soil of his field? In fact, climate change is
potentially catastrophic for the farming traditions that are
central to many Native cultures, and critical to the livelihoods
of the majority of Native peoples in Latin America.
Public debate around global warming tends to focus on the
large-scale industrial farms of the North. The Quechua farmer and
others who work on a small scale and use traditional methods have
been largely ignored. However, as the world slowly comes to terms
with the threat of climate change, Native farming traditions will
warrant greater attention. This is owing to the fifth factor
critical to farming: the seed itself.
The Andean potato is one of the world's most important food
crops. Each year in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas,
roughly 50 billion acres are planted with potatoes descended from
plants first domesticated in South America 7,000 years ago. Along
with other crops first domesticated by indigenous peoples-such as
corn from Central America, squash, beans and tomatoes from the
Andes, and rice from South Asia-potatoes literally feed the
world. And when these global crops are no longer suited to the
environment in which they are grown, when their resistance to
disease and pests begins to fail or the climate itself changes,
the best way to rejuvenate the breeding stock will be to
introduce new genetic material from the vast diversity of crop
varieties still maintained by indigenous peoples.
The spectrum of colors displayed in the Quechua farmer's potatoes
reflects the fact that each is genetically distinct. The genetic
diversity of the half-dozen potatoes he holds in his hands is
roughly comparable to the diversity you might find in a North
American supermarket. However, it is only a small sample of the
100 to 200 potato varieties planted each year on the Andean
slopes. And even this represents only a fraction of the total
diversity found throughout the region. From Colombia to Chile, it
is estimated that indigenous peoples cultivate at least eight
potato species and more than 3,000 varieties. The Andes also
sustain at least 100 more wild potato species.
The extraordinary genetic diversity of Andean potatoes and of
other Andean crops such as squash and beans is the product of
millennia of plant breeding. And much of this plant breeding has
been driven by the need to adapt crops to the extraordinary
climatic diversity of the region.
The Andes is one of the world's most complex and varied regions
in terms of geography and climate. Along the two axes of latitude
and altitude, the Andes encompasses fully two-thirds of all
possible combinations of climate and geography found on Earth,
including cloud forests, deserts, rolling grasslands, lakes,
marshes, glacial plains and the headwaters of the Amazon.
Add extreme weather occurrences to the wide-ranging geographical
variations and agricultural challenges become magnified. There
are many ways farmers can respond to unfavorable conditions and
climate changes. If rainfall is insufficient, they can use
artificial irrigation. If summers are too long and too hot, they
can apply more fertilizers to bring on early maturation. Or they
can do as Andean farmers have done over the millennia and adapt
the crops to suit the climate and conditions. Over thousands of
years, Native peoples introduced agriculture into virtually every
ecosystem in the Andes and adapted an incredible diversity both
of crops and crop varieties to these conditions. The most
important of these crops, the potato, has been adapted to every
environment except the depth of the rainforest or the frozen
peaks of the mountains.
Today, facing the likelihood of dramatic disruptions to the
climatic conditions for agriculture worldwide, indigenous farmers
provide a dramatic example of crop adaptation in an increasingly
extreme environment. More importantly, Native farmers also
safeguard the crop diversity essential for future adaptations.
Downslope is the best known historical site of Andean culture,
Machu Picchu. Here the mountainside has been carved in all
directions with hundreds of terraces, some as narrow as a few
feet in width. Anthropologist Jack Weatherford, in his book
Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the
World, suggests that Machu Picchu was not primarily a ceremonial
site, as is sometimes assumed, but the center of Incan
agricultural research. He speculates that the terraces were
created as test plots mirroring the various climate and soil
conditions of key regions of an empire that spanned much of the
Andes. On these terraces, new varieties of food and textile crops
would have been bred and tested before being distributed to local
farmers for further adaptation.
To get a rough idea of the likely effects of climate change on
agriculture, imagine the terraces of Machu Picchu repopulated as
a kind of microcosm of contemporary farming in the Americas. In
this microcosm, indigenous farmers have access to only a few
narrow terraces representing the most difficult growing
conditions. The indigenous people continue to work the land,
sustaining themselves through their knowledge of the terraces and
through the preservation and continued improvements of crops
adapted to these conditions.
Now imagine that a natural process such as erosion, which would
normally take place imperceptibly over thousands of years, is
suddenly accelerated so the impact is felt in a single
generation. Imagine that over a period of 20 years, the terraces
of Machu Picchu drop 500 feet or more closer to sea level. As
altitude decreases, temperature increases. But on individual
terraces, the results are more complex and variable.
Precipitation levels, for example, are also affected. The higher
temperatures lead to increased water evaporation. Rain strikes
some slopes, and the water available to some crops increases.
Other slopes, however, are passed by. Some experience increased
cloudiness, while rainfall diminishes and streams dry up. The
world of insects and microorganisms is radically altered.
One can imagine that the indigenous farmers initially would be
able to survive such changes. Natural weather cycles such as El
Niħo already vary farming conditions enormously with droughts and
floods. Many indigenous farmers cope with these naturally
occurring fluctuations by conserving seed stock suited to a wide
range of growing conditions, by storing food in forms such as
dried potatoes, and by maintaining hardy wild foods that can be
drawn on in times of extreme weather conditions.
Eventually, on many terraces, conditions will emerge unlike any
ever faced by the indigenous farmers. Even if it were
theoretically possible to farm under these conditions, the pace
of traditional plant breeding would be too slow for the rate and
extent of change now facing the indigenous farmers. Adapting
crops and knowledge that had been so precisely suited to entirely
different conditions would require greater resources than those
available to the indigenous farmers. At this point, traditions of
indigenous agriculture handed down through the ages could well
collapse.
Before this point is reached, however, non-indigenous farmers on
the richer neighboring terraces must confront a crisis of their
own. Pests and diseases that failed to gain a foothold among the
diverse crops of the indigenous farms spread rapidly through the
monocultures of the white and mestizo farmers with devastating
results. Even for those farmers who can afford them, increased
pesticides will not solve the problem. The crops themselves must
be radically and quickly altered. The wealthiest of these farmers
have the technological resources for plant breeding. What they
lack are the "raw materials," the genetic characteristics for
resistance. At this point, conceivably, a new relationship
between indigenous and non-indigenous farmers might be negotiated
to prevent the collapse of farming.
How realistic is this scenario? The fact is that traditional
systems of indigenous agriculture stand in sharp contrast to the
system of food growing that now predominates in the United States
and Canada, but the two systems are intricately linked. And this
link may be the key to how climate change impacts global
agriculture.
In this industrial model of agriculture, one or two crop
varieties are grown over vast areas. Instead of trying to use
local resources of soil and water optimally and sustainably, the
natural environment is all but ignored and uniform growing
conditions are fabricated through large-scale irrigation and the
intensive use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides.
In the industrial agricultural system, a handful of basically
similar potato varieties, all of which require nearly identical
soil conditions, temperature, rainfall and growing seasons,
account for almost all global production. In fact, in the United
States, the Russet Burbank (the variety preferred by fast food
restaurants and manufacturers of potato chips and frozen french
fries) accounts for 60 percent of commercial production. More
money is spent radically modifying potato-growing conditions with
artificial pesticides and fertilizers than is spent on any other
crop.
As this industrial agricultural model expands throughout the
world, it is more and more often in conflict with the survival of
the indigenous peoples whose lands are being appropriated for
plantations and whose ecosystems are being destroyed by river
diversions and pesticide run-offs. Ironically, as the industrial
model of agriculture expands, it is also becoming ever more
dependent on indigenous peoples.
Monocultures-large, uninterrupted fields of uniform crops-create
ideal conditions for disease and pests to evolve and spread.
Growing these crops around the world in conditions that have been
made uniform by large-scale irrigation and use of artificial
pesticides and fertilizers further worsens the situation. When
crops fail, agribusiness responds by discarding the old varieties
for new ones bred for greater resistance either to the latest
pests and diseases or to the chemicals used to fight these pests.
But because these so-called improved varieties are again grown in
global monocultures, ideal conditions are once again created for
new pests and diseases to emerge or for the old pests and disease
to evolve and overcome the new defenses. It is a vicious cycle
often compared to running on a treadmill.
The inherent dangers of this approach to farming have long been
clear. In the autumn of 1846, nearly 90 percent of the Irish
potato crop rotted in the fields. Potatoes, introduced from the
Americas decades before, had become the staple diet of Irish farm
laborers. When the potatoes rotted, the laborers starved. By the
end of the next autumn and the second crop failure, more than 1
million people had died in the "Irish potato famine."
The destruction of the Irish potato crop was caused by a fungal
disease known as "late blight," but it is linked to climate and
farming practices. The disease likely originated in Central
America near the present-day border of Mexico and Guatemala.
Significantly, although indigenous farmers in the region had
apparently lived with the blight for generations, there is no
indication that the blight had ever caused starvation before it
was introduced to Ireland. The indigenous farmers were likely
protected against the blight by the great genetic diversity among
the potatoes that they grew and by the overall diversity of their
diet. In contrast, the Irish laborers were almost wholly
dependent on potatoes descended from two closely related
varieties. When damp weather in late summer gave the blight its
first foothold in Ireland, it spread quickly through these fields
of largely uniform crops with devastating results.
Potato farmers eventually recovered from the blight by breeding
new potato varieties with a more varied genetic heritage. Plant
hunters were also able to locate blight resistant varieties among
indigenous farm communities in Central and South America and
recent breeding programs have attempted to incorporate these
traits.
Despite such lessons from history, the overall trend of
industrial agriculture over the last 100 years has been toward
less, rather than more, diversity. In North America alone, an
estimated 97 percent of commercial crop varieties have become
extinct in this century, either because seed companies have
streamlined their inventories or because the most important
buyers-the food processors, restaurants, and supermarkets-have no
need for such diversity.
Seed banks may help stem this rate of extinction but they are by
no means a solution. No seed bank or network of seed banks could
ever represent the infinite variation in climate adaptation even
within plant varieties that occurs at the level of each community
or farmer's fields. Furthermore, plant varieties conserved only
in seed banks have had their evolution halted so that they no
longer interact and adapt to the constantly changing growing
conditions found in farmers' fields.
As a growing number of conservation organizations, government
programs and international agencies have come to recognize, true
conservation of genetic diversity can only take place in farmers'
fields. Unfortunately, the ultimate consequence of the industrial
model of agriculture is farm fields that in the words of the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences are "impressively uniform . . . and
impressively vulnerable."
This impressive vulnerability of industrial agriculture is key to
understanding how climate change will likely have an impact on
global agriculture and on the relationship between industrial
agriculture and indigenous farming communities. Faced with rapid
and dramatic climate change, the impressively vulnerable
industrial farm can conceivably continue to use large-scale
irrigation and artificial fertilizers to counter the effects of
changing temperature and precipitation. The cost would be high,
no doubt much higher than many farmers in the southern hemisphere
or Third World could bear, and probably higher than could be
absorbed by most marginal to medium-scale farmers in North
America or Europe. At the same time, these changes might be
welcomed by the largest agribusiness enterprises, which could
afford the higher levels of industrial inputs and could profit
from this new advantage.
Ultimately, however, changes in temperature are not the only
serious challenge faced by the industrial farmer. Crop losses to
insect pests have steadily increased throughout this century
despite-or perhaps because of-ever-greater use of pesticides.
Outbreaks of famine-threatening diseases such as late blight are
becoming more and more frequent. Not only has industrial
agriculture failed to eradicate the blight, the blight has
evolved into new and more virulent forms. Insects and disease are
able to spread amidst modern plant breeding and industrial
controls because of their vast numbers and rapid rate of
reproduction. Together these factors allow disease and insects to
quickly adapt and thrive in the face of agribusiness controls or
climate changes. Sudden, dramatic climate change will inevitably
catalyze new evolutionary pathways to which industrial
agriculture cannot possibly respond without drawing on the
genetic diversity preserved by indigenous peoples.
At the same time, the survival of Native farmers ultimately
depends on the concentrated research capacity of the industrial
farm system. Native farmers, who have successfully domesticated
and adapted countless plant varieties over the millennia, soon
will be up against the challenge of accelerating the pace of
adaptation to bring about substantial new adaptations within a
generation. The fact is that the scale of industrial agriculture,
the wealth that it has generated, and the ample support of
publicly funded research have led to a number of significant
breakthroughs in just this kind of plant breeding.
Take again the example of the potato. Most potatoes are grown
from sprouted potato eyes rather than from seed. As a result, the
genetic makeup of the resulting plant is identical to this single
parent. Furthermore, since the potatoes that produce these
sprouts grow side by side with their parents in the soil, disease
is passed on from one generation to the next and tends to build
up over time.
Indigenous farmers in the Andes typically grow most potatoes from
sprouted potatoes. Andean farmers usually also grow some potatoes
from the "true seeds" that are sometimes produced above ground on
the potato stalk once its flowers have been pollinated. Potatoes
grown from true seed are highly random, almost unpredictable
combinations of the genes from the two parents. Producing a
useful new variety in this way requires both a keen knowledge of
the plant and the patience of a lifetime.
Scientists working for Northern institutions, transnational
corporations and the International Potato Center in Peru have
made a number of recent advances based on these traditional
techniques. One is the use of tissue cultures grown under sterile
laboratory conditions to produce sprouting potatoes from which
most or all soil-borne diseases have been eliminated. Another is
a technique for creating true potato seeds that, like the seeds
of hybrid corn or beans, produce consistent, uniform offspring.
Finally, genetic engineering has permitted the rapid
identification and insertion of specific genetic characteristics
into potato breeding stock.
Current technologies, however, have not addressed the needs or
concerns of indigenous peoples. In the best case, tissue culture
technology is being used to maintain viability of potato
varieties that might otherwise be discarded. However, contrary to
developments with "true potato seed," this technology has been
applied exclusively to preservation and breeding of potato
varieties for large-scale, commercial monocultures. In the worst
case, biotechnology is being used, not to accelerate the results
that could be obtained through traditional breeding, but to
create new and potentially hazardous cross-species fusions that
could never occur in nature. One such example is the hybrid of
potato and toxic bacteria created by Monsanto that defends itself
against pests by poisoning them. In addition, with these new
advances, the scientists are using the Western intellectual
property system to claim patent and patent-like rights over the
technology and its products, which allows them to monopolize the
profits and exert monopoly control over how the technology is
applied.
What is needed is a way to apply these technologies in a
dramatically different way. Scientists with the resources to
accelerate plant breeding must work in partnership with the
communities and peoples who maintain contemporary crop diversity.
Local farmers must not be prohibited from adapting the products
of new plant breeding to their own needs, but enabled to do so.
Call it the Machu Picchu model.
Recent trends in international law would support this kind of
paradigm shift in agricultural research as a right of indigenous
peoples. The legally binding Convention on Biological Diversity
and ILO Convention 169, the moral principles of the Draft
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UNESCO
Model Provisions for the Protection of Folklore-as well as the
broader concept of Farmers' Rights being developed within the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization, which would apply to any
traditional farmer-all point toward a new regime of collective
rights over knowledge and resources for the traditional
innovators and knowledge keepers. The elements of such a rights
regime as it is emerging in the UN system would include the right
to prior informed consent of any use or elaboration of indigenous
knowledge or genetic resources, the right to a fair share in the
benefits derived from the exploitation of indigenous knowledge
and resources, and the right to participate as full partners in
this development.
Perhaps most significantly, the Biodiversity Convention
recognizes that information exchange and technology transfer
should be two-way exchanges. Although arguably intended to
promote corporations' access to genetic resources in the southern
hemisphere, the Convention makes explicit-and legally binding-the
right of indigenous peoples to have access to and share in the
benefits of the scientific resources of the North. The wording of
the Convention suggests that these rights are held not just at
the international or national level, but by each village or
community.
As yet, there is no enforcement mechanism to back up this
emerging body of indigenous rights. In general, enforcement has
lagged far beyond the recognition of rights in international law.
Five decades after the recognition of the crime of genocide, the
UN system is only just now setting up criminal courts to try
those accused of such crimes. The enforcement of rights
pertaining to indigenous knowledge and biological resources is
currently evolving at the intergenerational pace of traditional
plant breeding. But if the effects of climate change are already
upon us, the evolution of such enforcement mechanisms must be
dramatically and immediately accelerated. The ability of future
generations to feed themselves depends on it.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Craig Benjamin is a Canadian journalist and researcher with a
special interest in food and agriculture issues.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Native Americas Journal Akwe:kon Press American Indian Program
Cornell University 450 Caldwell Hall Ithaca, NY 14853-2602
Subscriptions (800) 9-NATIVE (962-8483) Telephone (607)
255-4308 Fax (607) 255-0185 Email.
nativeamericas@cornell.edu
Native Americas Journal http://www.nativeamericas.com
http://www.nativeamericas.net
http://nativeamericas.aip.cornell.edu
American Indian Program, Cornell University
http://www.aip.cornell.edu
****************************
---------------
klaus wiegand
+-[Quote of the day, powered by k. wiegand]--+
| |
| Nothing is as hard to do gracefully |
| as getting down off your high horse. |
| Franklin P. Jones |
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