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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Peruvians revive ancient agriculture
  • Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 08:14:26 -0600

Peruvians revive ancient agriculture
Waru warus boost Andean productivity with scientists’ help
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030804/ap_on_re_la_a
m_ca/exp_waru_waru_3
By Drew Benson
ASSOCIATED PRESS

  
ALTO CATACHA, Peru, Aug. 5 —  Viewed from atop a rocky hill beside this
remote hamlet, the worn earthen mounds and canals of an ancient farming
system that once fed an empire stretch out to the horizon. The method faded
out of use a millennium ago. But today it has been brought back to life by
dozens of Indian communities located on the plains around Lake Titicaca as
a
way to protect crops against drought, floods and even frost damage.

       KNOWN AS “WARU WARU” in the local Quechua language, the
technique has
proven an inexpensive way to improve crop yields and ease the punishing
effects of farming at 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) above sea level on the
Andean plains.
       Despite its demonstrated success, however, the rediscovered
system
may once again slip into history without an authoritarian civilization to
insure its maintenance.
       Two decades ago, American anthropologists began rebuilding
the waru
warus with the help of local communities in an attempt to better understand
how they might have worked.
       Modern-day Indians used traditional tools, including Andean
foot
plows that have changed little in thousands of years, to cut accumulated
sod
out of the old canals and restore the waru warus to their former
dimensions.
       The scientists found that the technique not only worked —
it tripled
crop production.
       
‘WARU WARU FEVER’
       Excited by the possibility of ancient technology succeeding
where
costly machinery and chemical fertilizers had failed to beat hunger,
private
development organizations and the Peruvian government rushed in to aid
farmers.
       “There was waru waru fever to reconstruct ancient
technology back
then,” said Alipio Canahua, a program director for the international
humanitarian agency CARE.

       Between 1986 and 2001 about 15 groups rehabilitated 10,100
acres
(4,000 hectares), Canahua said in his Puno office, about an hour southeast
of Alto Catacha on Lake Titicaca. He said as much as 250,000 acres (100,000
hectares) in the area show traces of waru warus.
       Dimensions vary, but the raised fields are generally 1 yard
(meter)
high, 4 to 10 yards wide, 10 to 100 yards long and separated by similarly
sized canals.
       Potatoes and grains such as quinoa are grown in the elevated
earth,
while underwater ferns in the canals provide a home for nitrogen-rich green
algae that provide a natural fertilizer.
       The water in the canals allows for “splash irrigation”
and even
creates a slightly warmer micro-climate that protects crops from the killer
frost of the harsh altiplano nights. By absorbing the strong equatorial
sunlight during the day, the water retains enough solar radiation to raise
overnight temperatures by nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).
       Anthropologists from the University of Illinois working in
Peru also
confirmed another suspected benefit — that the raised systems provided a
buffer against the notoriously fluctuating lake.
       In 1983, the water in restored canals helped irrigate crops
during a
severe drought that damaged conventional fields in the area. Three years
later, the elevated fields survived heavy flooding that inundated
neighboring flatlands.
       
1,500-YEAR-OLD TECHNIQUE

       The University of Chicago’s Alan Kolata, who rebuilt
raised fields
attributed to the ancient Tiwanaku culture on the lake’s southern flood
plain in northern Bolivia, has determined that the technique dates back to
about A.D. 500.
       But beginning about A.D. 1100, a 300-year-long drought
dropped the
water table and dried up fields, Kolata’s research has shown. The ensuing
collapse of the agricultural system led to a political crisis that plunged
the region into a pastoral dark age, he suggests.
       “There was a sustained boom in the agricultural fields and
then a
serious bust when the water was cut off,” he said. “They didn’t
diversify
their investment.”
       Canahua said he still sees many of the raised fields being
maintained
since the CARE program ended in 2001. He is now looking at using them in
conjunction with other ancient techniques such as interconnected irrigation
lakes called “qochas” and the Inca-built terraces known as
“andenes” for
farming the steep Andean slopes.
       “For me, the waru warus aren’t the solution. They are an
option — one
more option,” Canahua said.
       
INCENTIVES NEEDED
       Kolata believes the success of rediscovered technology boils
down to
governments getting the economic incentives right.
       Unlike raised fields on the Peruvian side of the border, his
test
fields — known as “sukacollos” in the Aymara language spoken south of
Puno —
were quickly abandoned when the Bolivian government and private groups did
not step in.
       “There is a moral to the tale of Tiwanaku,” he said.
“There was a
tremendous investment by the state over a 600-year period — and it
worked.”
       
How climate change kills societies
       In Cutini Capilla, an Aymara community on the western shore
of Lake
Titicaca about halfway between Puno and the ruins of the ancient Tiwanaku
capital, 53-year-old Luis Tulco said the raised fields his village built
five years ago are doing well.
       “Before, this area always flooded, but now we have waru
warus and
this land is useful,” he said in heavily accented Spanish as he stood at
the
edge of an elevated field of purplish quinoa under an enormous blue sky.
       Cesar Mamani, the 45-year-old president of the 65-family
community,
agreed.
       “Old techniques remind us of our ancestors, and our
ancestors had
good ideas,” he said.
       
       © 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.





  • [Livingontheland] Peruvians revive ancient agriculture, Tradingpost, 08/06/2003

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