INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ON SELF DETERMINATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT United for our food sovereignty, traditional

cultures and ways of life

Museu da Repblica Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

INDIGENOUS NUTRITIONAL CULTURE: THE FOUNDATION OF FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

June 18 2012

1. 10,000 years of indigenous knowledge are concentrated on our rich biodiversity. The Andes have been one of the main scenarios for plant and animal domestication with a global scale, making it a geo-strategic space in the field of genetics. To reach this diversity, we indigenous peoples had to develop technologies of plant and animal acclimatization to a rugged geography; gain land for harvest on the banks of hills by means of platforms; generate micro climates through different means in the deserts, mountains and jungles. All of this besides a holistic knowledge where interpretation and dialogue with the elements and animals and the knowledge of the skies and climatic short and long duration rhythms, allowed to generate the conditions that in the XV century caused astonishment in western societies. It is until recently that some aspects of these conditions are being studied, particularly by industries with commercial ends. ECOLOGICAL AND GENETIC DIVERSITY 2. In the case of Peru, there are 182 plant and 5 animal domesticated species, where the potato and corn constitute two of the four food pillars of the world. With regards to domesticated animals, camelids such as the alpaca and the llama, together with the guinea pig (cuy), constitute sources of high protein meats that are low in fat but that are still viewed with distrust by the non indigenous populations. 3. The potato is a native of the Andean plateau and it constitutes the nutritional base for indigenous peoples in the Andes, while for the Amazonian populations it is the yucca. There are more than 3,000 varieties out of which 9 species have been domesticated and one, the white or common potato (Solanum tuberosum), is globally farmed.

Av. Horacio Urteaga No 534-203, Jess Mara Telefax: (51-1) 423-2757 Email: ayllu@chirapaq.org.pe www.chirapaq.org.pe

PLUNDERING DIVERSITY 4. Indigenous knowledge in the field of ecosystems was articulated by the West to facilitate the food production their societies demanded which led diverse animal species to evolve in order to live in other geographic realities. Consequently, the substitution of native crops and animals by other foreign ones modified the Andean ecosystems as well indigenous knowledges which were suppressed by qualifying them as demonic. In practice this gave way to the criminalization of knowledges and ways of life of indigenous peoples; a constant feature that is present until today.

5. In this process of criminalization of indigenous knowledges, multiple foods of vegetable and animal origin have suffered genetic erosion, have become extinct, or their properties cannot be determined accurately. The pressure posed by a system of production oriented towards a standardized market which prevents the rotation and rest of lands and the presence of chemical products to accelerate production or the intromission of pathogenic agents have motivated the impoverishment of soils and led to the reduction and utility of diverse varieties of different products. This is combined with the decrease in our farming areas.

INDIGENOUS LEGACY AS A SOURCE OF FOOD SOVEREIGNTY 6. The recovery processes of our biodiversity and of indigenous knowledge is part of our affirmation process as indigenous peoples. In the Peruvian case, this process emerges from indigenous peoples in the mid 1970s but has increased its presence during the last 20 years. It has a double strategy: a. One with indigenous peoples to confront malnutrition and affirm our life philosophy around the earth and all that it entails in the social, economic, political and spiritual spheres. b. Another with the State, so that the contributions to the formation of our country made by indigenous peoples are recognized as well as to increase the visibility of the problems and demand the recognition AND RESPECT of our rights. 7. From CHIRAPAQ, Center for Indigenous Cultures of Peru, an association conformed by Andean and Amazonian indigenous peoples and non indigenous peoples, our indigenous nutrition proposal to confront the levels of malnutrition was presented during the most gruesome times of the internal war in order to aid displaced populations. These populations had no land or emotional support to bear their uproot and have increased the poor sectors of the cities of Lima and Ayacucho. Results could not have been more encouraging since after 6 months the acute malnutrition of boys and girls was overcome as well as their apathy to study. In parallel, emotional support was provided by the intergenerational ties between the elders and youth.

8. The proposal had a great impact and was the object of study and monitoring by diverse organizations. It was based on local and seasonal products, thus it was diverse and appealed to creativity and research and it privileged some products of high nutritional value such as the tarwi, quinua, kiwicha and the caigua. Then again, the social programs that were implemented afterwards, for diverse ideological, political and economic reasons,

Av. Horacio Urteaga No 534-203, Jess Mara Telefax: (51-1) 423-2757 Email: ayllu@chirapaq.org.pe www.chirapaq.org.pe

privileged the distribution of a sole package of industrial products that came from or were pressured or conditioned by foreign aid. This tendency continues until today. 9. As a process, the next step was to keep advancing in the recovery of rights, thus began the recovery process of the lands and native products of the peoples affected by the war in the region of Vilcashuamn in Ayacucho. In some cases lands were recovered, while in others native crops. In the case of plants, there were memories that a certain variety used to be farmed, such as beans, but that the tradition to farm them was lost. Thus began a collaborative process between communities to exchange seeds, and when they did not have them, seeds were brought from other regions.

10. In the case of potatoes, diverse varieties have been reintroduced and this has improved the farming system based on organic fertilizers, the use of live fences and the association with other plants that currently allow for high production performance and sustainability.

11. Likewise was the case of the quinua. The crop had disappeared since it requires special care in its farming and in its use as food and particularly due to the stigmas that weighed on it as food for the Indians. 12. A similar process took place in the community of Laramate, Huancavelica, where three varieties of native potatoes have been reintroduced as well as the farming of native vegetables in family bio-orchards. These have improved and diversified the indigenous diet, which had become dependent on industrial flours, and have allowed for women to earn an income since they are the ones who drive and sustain these initiatives. 13. In other cases, together with regional organizations, initiatives have been launched that include the raising of guinea pigs as a way to obtain meat and crop fertilizer- as was the case in the region of Anta-Cusco. The sales of these also led to income generation. Then again, a sustainable-large-scale market for selling guinea pigs still does not exist even though their nutritional value and low levels of fat have been proven. This is precisely due to the prejudices that surround this animal. 14. It is this last point of prejudice, stereotypes and, in sum, of racism, that constitutes one of the first barriers we have to confront on a daily basis since all that is related to or produced by indigenous peoples is viewed with distrust. This results in a cruel paradox where in the last few years Peruvian food has become a nucleus for national identity and has led to the rise of the novoandean current which is increasingly obtaining international recognition. Then again, while indigenous products provide exotic inputs to the global gastronomy, the benefits and recognition to indigenous peoples has not translated into agriculture incentive policies or protection of indigenous territories. PARTNERSHIPS FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RECOGNITION 15. Nevertheless, we now also face the issue of biopiracy, or the appropriation by food industries and pharmaceuticals of the indigenous peoples knowledges on the nutritional or medical properties of plants. This has led to reduce plant qualities to active principals graphed in patented chemical formulas.

16. Facing this reality and danger brought by the presence of biopiracy, in 2007 and 2008,

Av. Horacio Urteaga No 534-203, Jess Mara Telefax: (51-1) 423-2757 Email: ayllu@chirapaq.org.pe www.chirapaq.org.pe

together with Amazonian indigenous organizations that belong to the Ashninka people and quechua indigenous organizations from Vilcashuaman, we recovered and registered the following:

Quechuas Plants recovered with regards to their knowledge and application Plants registered in INDECOPI

Ashninkas

186

72

156

68

17. The plant registration took place thanks to the participation of the officially assigned organization. In our case registration goes through the National Institute of Competence and Protection of Intellectual Property -INDECOPI- through a format called Application for the National Registry of Indigenous Peoples Collective Knowledges. The experience proved the legal possibilities and limits of registering indigenous collective intellectual property since it entails:

A. A research and compiling process that requires the efforts of indigenous organizations and resources for its systematization.

B. Payments and taxes that many times are not within the organizations reach since they require transportation costs to Lima and many hours of processing. C. Which people can register? As mentioned implementation varies from people to people. D. Surveillance to make sure the registry is fulfilled. beforehand the knowledge and

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY AS PART OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 18. The lack of knowledge about indigenous food traditions in very common in our society. Recently, we carried out a Day of Live Culture called The Food Culture of Indigenous Peoples in the city of Huamanga, Ayacucho. Indigenous peoples from the Andes and the Amazons exhibited the diversity of our diet as a healthy, sustainable and sovereign proposal to beat the levels of malnutrition in our country.

19. Precisely the last report on the state of malnutrition or of Food Insecurity in Peru specifies that it has increased and it is focused on indigenous peoples. Why is malnutrition in our country focused on indigenous peoples if it is precisely us that have a rich and diverse food tradition? The answer lies in the sustained impoverishment that we are cornered to; denying our land rights to habitats where animals and plants exist; and excluding us from decision making and power spaces. In other words denying us of our self and our existence.

Av. Horacio Urteaga No 534-203, Jess Mara Telefax: (51-1) 423-2757 Email: ayllu@chirapaq.org.pe www.chirapaq.org.pe

20. The processes of food sovereignty and sustainable development imply a radical change of paradigms where the center of development and of prioritization of political and economic needs are human beings; where we indigenous peoples form part of the social imaginaries and country projects; and in a society where all rights are the priority of human beings and not only for industries. For indigenous peoples food sovereignty is the fundamental pillar of development and the later cannot be achieved by mortgaging our future for macroeconomic rates that will end up wearing out our earth and everyone elses.

Lima, June, 2012 Tarcila Rivera Zea CHIRAPAQ

Av. Horacio Urteaga No 534-203, Jess Mara Telefax: (51-1) 423-2757 Email: ayllu@chirapaq.org.pe www.chirapaq.org.pe