Preserving potatoes and culture

Peruvian farmers prepare to send seeds of more than 1,500 potato varieties to the safety of an Arctic vault

Written byJef Akst

| 3 min read

Fried, baked, or mashed, potatoes are prevalent in most Westerner's diets. But they're more than just a side dish to Peru's indigenous communities; the starchy tubers are an essential part of society. But with climate change threatening the valued crop, local potato farmers are scrambling to save the imperiled plants.

Potato Park in Cusco, Peru
Asociación ANDES

"The encroachment of dry lands is a big concern," says Alejandro Argumedo, a plant scientist at the linkurl:Potato Park;http://www.parquedelapapa.org/ in Cusco, which is home to 1,500 of the region's potato varieties and more than 6,000 local farmers. As temperatures climb, farmers are forced to plant their crops higher and higher in the mountains. "As this trend continues, we won't have land to plant potatoes. The future doesn't look that bright if we don't do something."To circumvent a potentially catastrophic potato crash, Peruvian farmers are sending seeds from heirloom varieties of the root vegetables to a vault in Arctic Norway to ensure their safekeeping."Potatoes are the iconic crop of that region, very important in their culture and religion -- and diet, of course," says linkurl:Cary Fowler,;http://www.croptrust.org/main/staff.php executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a non-profit that promotes the conservation of crop diversity and partner in the establishment of Norway's Svalbard Global Seed Vault. "There's simply no way to separate the people from potatoes in the Andes. They essentially coevolved." Sending potato seeds to the Arctic vault for safekeeping "provides a good insurance policy" for this important part of South American culture, he adds.Peru is the birthplace of potatoes, with most marketed varieties around the world stemming from a single cultivar first raised in the southern part of the country. Nearly 10,000 years of farming has produced more than 4,000 varieties with unique colors, tastes, and nutritional qualities. Unfortunately, changing climate and weather patterns are threatening this diversity.

To protect Peru's potatoes, the Potato Park is collecting seeds from as many varieties as it can, and shipping them off to the Svalbard seed bank. But it's not as simple as plucking a few seeds off the plants in the fields, Argumedo notes. Unlike most crops, the vast majority of potato cultivars are propagated by the tubers themselves, not the seeds. While some varieties produce seeds naturally, others do not."It's going to be a rich process of learning," he says, outlining the Park's plan to raise each variety under greenhouse conditions to try to coax them to produce seeds -- an effort the farmers will undertake with the help of the International Potato Center, a potato research institute in Lima. Once the proper conditions and substrate are identified, "we can harvest each one of the cultivars and prepare them for sending them to Svalbard -- dried, stored, [and] packaged in a way that's appropriate for sending."Saving the potato seeds may help preserve health benefits of the different varieties, says linkurl:Mary Ellen Camire,;http://foodsciencehumannutrition.umaine.edu/faculty/mary-ellen-camire/ a professor in the department of food science and human nutrition at the University of Maine. "Along the way we've bred out a lot of things that at the time didn't seem to be important, but now we're realizing have health benefits." A recent study, for example, showed that colored potatoes "did a much better job of reducing oxidation and inflammatory problems" than their white-fleshed relatives, she says. While most commercial potato varieties have white flesh and brown skin, the South American cultivars come in all different colors, including red, blue, purple, and yellow. "By having those ancestors, we may be able to go back and produce more nutritious crops for us in the future."But the people of the Peruvian Andes, are more focused on preserving their culture. "Potato for us represents more than a food crop," Argumedo says. "We have potatoes for almost every aspect of our social life. We have potatoes for the bride, for welcoming ceremonies, for marriages -- all the important moments of life. So our culture without potatoes would be something without much meaning for the future of people of the Andes."
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Relief for parched plants;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57745/
[14th October 2010]*linkurl:Critical plant bank in danger;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57617/
[11th August 2010]*linkurl:The roots of farming;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/55441/
[20th February 2009]

Meet the Author

Jef Akst

Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.

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