 So this session will explore Indigenous food systems in the Potato Park in the Andes near Cusco of Peru. And the Potato Park is a biocultural heritage territory, which was established in 2000 with support of the NGO Asociación Andes. And it's now a thriving Indigenous food system where Indigenous Quechua values and beliefs are really strong, and it's provided a really important response or is providing an important response to a number of crises, to the crisis of biodiversity loss, of climate change impacts in the Andes, and also to COVID-19, and the racism crisis that we're facing that this summer's events exposed. Thank you. And as you see, how our brothers and sisters are presenting this in a way that is weaving our story, is weaving our different perceptions and views. And again, I want to stress how the trees tree I used, the Saifara I used, when they work together, when nature works together with humans and the sacred, then we have harmony, we have plenty of food. And so this is why we call it sumakhausai. So a food system in the Potato Park wouldn't exist if you do not, you know, our old system of 10, 18,000 years old that we are doing agriculture here in this lands. We continue to be based on those principles and those values of working together with nature, with apachamama, of working together with the sacred, with our mountains, and that's how our organization is expressed. This organization, this organization has been able to reach out to the international network of indigenous peoples so that we are recognized internationally. Because we try to work in a cooperative way. If we want to see the future among indigenous peoples, we need to remember of our values, of our knowledge, of our own way of doing things. And we shouldn't lose it. So if we want to have sumakhausai, when we hear our institutions, our organizations have to be based, has to be based on our principles. So Sister Cristina, this is our presentation. This is how we do sumakhausai when we hear and how the way we are organized, how we work in mutual benefit with our landscape in the Potato Park. Happy, even though we have the COVID pandemic upon us, we have plenty of food. We have food that we have shared with other communities, with people that are hungry in Cusco. And that tells the strength of our system. And thank you, and we would like to now... And now we would like to introduce ourselves. Good morning everyone. I'm Carmen and it's here in the Potato Park. I'm a leader in India. We work with the medicinal plant collective. And as you see, you're going to find here from elders like me to youth. And I'm very happy to have shared our knowledge with all my brothers and sisters. Good morning to everyone. I'm so happy to be also to say hello to these distinguished viewers from the community of Pamaru. Brothers and sisters, Sister Cristina, we send you our greetings. As you see, I'm Isidora Takuri, I'm a leader of the medicinal plants group. Brothers and sisters, I'm Isidora, I'm a leader of the group of gastronomy. Brothers and sisters, I'm Ricardina Paco, I'm a leader of the group of experts. I'm Daniel Paco-Candori, I'm a technical local expert, local expert. I'm Mariano Sulta, leader of the community of Pampa Yachta, I'm a technical local local expert. Sister Cristina, brothers and sisters, I'm Adrián Super-Takuri, I'm the community of Pamaru, and I am a local knowledge leader. I'm Nazario Kispi Aman, Sister Cristina, and hello everyone. I'm Mariano Sulta, I'm a leader of the community of Pampa Yachta. I'm Cristina Anejamo and I'm a local expert. I'm Anejamo and I'm a local expert. So I hope everyone can hear me. Would anyone like to ask a question to the Potato Park experts? We have 15 minutes left of this session and Alejandro can translate the responses. Okay, can you just, can I say something while people think of questions? Alejandro, I'd like to just say thank you so much. I really appreciated all their hard work and it's been very nice to see them all and I've learned a lot from them. The message about the values underpinning their food system is really important. Or should I say it in Spanish? Yes please Cristina. Conocimientos, sabidurías tan ricas sobre los valores tan importantes y me alegro mucho de veros a todos. Muchísimas gracias. Tenemos una pregunta. Hola. Tenemos una pregunta que quieren saber cómo guardáis vuestras semillas de papa, o sea sobre el banco de semillas. Podías explicar un poquito, por favor. I just asked about the question about how do they store their potato seeds, so they're responding to that now. How do we, it may be porcelain that why we keep so many potatoes. We only follow the way how we have learned from our elders. The way we do it, we do it at conservation and how we all order our different types of varieties that we follow. At three, we know that certain types of potatoes derived from certain wild relatives and they have different types of features. Some are to dry it and others are to cook other types of peeling. So the type of conservation we do reflects the different types of uses that we may call the potatoes in the potato park. So but this type of selection them needs to be complemented by a basic infrastructure that from all times we used to have. Now we have a seed bank where we store using this type of selection, which reflects our taxonomy. So once we have, if we were in the harvest time, we bring all the potatoes that were collected and Mike had this taken to the storage in the month of May and so that we can share with all the communities. So there is a connection between this last day of May where we celebrate the national day of potato because it's the end of the planting of the harvest season and between May and August is that we start processing different types of potatoes and do seed selection as was explained before in the month of August. Thank you very much. So we have a question about how what the community expects and wants out of research on Indigenous food systems. They're not part of the AAHRC project so I'm not sure if that question is that relevant. And how those changes in the landscapes are having a moving and so the collaboration with scientists and doing this research allow us to respond to specific problems that we have. So it could be pests, it could be how potatoes are moving very fast up in the mountain, how we can use in gastronomy, how we are used in medicine. So we have different types of questions and our research is decided by us and respond to our needs. So being engaged in research has allowed us also to build an infrastructure of conservation and that infrastructure of conservation translates into responses, solutions that then the economic collectives take advantage like in gastronomy or developing new products for the potato part. So and all that is connected also to the inter-community agreement that we have. Thank you. And like as a potato part we do not see necessary to have modern varieties. In our ecology, those modern varieties do not work, do not produce but the native potatoes, especially those that have colors, especially those that have taste and texture, those that are of interest because we know them. We know which of those can be used for health, for food, for medicine, for ritual. We can make it use it in the restaurant that we have here or we can take it to the market, especially for the booming gastronomy industry. Thank you so much. So I have another question. I wanted to say it in English as well so everyone else knows what the question is. It's does the ceremony in the pandemic context help them to feel less the impact of COVID? And another question is potato is vulnerable to blights? Is there a method to fight these? Well, the pandemic has affected these communities in a different way because we have focused on strengthening our local food system when the pandemic arrived. We didn't depend on the standard markets. We depended on our own food production. So when the markets were closed, when the roads were closed, we were able to even host there other people. We have all types of products. We have hinwas, we have fasciolis, we have corn and other types. So we have plenty of food here and so our work that has focused on keeping the food for us allows us to respond to those pressures and the different types of needs that we have. So this shows that if you conserve a large diversity of food crops, this type of crisis can be overcome. You won't have this type of needs of food. So yes, the values are inherent to our system. I'm happy that if we wouldn't have those values, we wouldn't be able to connect this diversity. I have a question on how we are dealing with this. We've been living with Afritoktora for thousands of years. So this is a disease that doesn't need any type of external solutions. We do a management by doing a good selection of seeds first and selecting a land where you have to be rotating your crop so that you avoid putting in the same type of plot where Afritoktora is. So doing rotation and good seed selection provides you a good strategy to respond to this type of disease. So we don't need transgenics or any type of modern seed to respond to this. Having high diversity is another strategy because the disease will affect usually only one or two diversity varieties. But if you keep a large diversity of potatoes, then you minimize the impact of the disease. So you have to learn how to live with it, know how to disappear it. And then also you have to work with nature. We know medicinal plants, we know other types of plants that help us to make different types of preparations by which we can also help the potatoes to resist. Though Afritoktora is moving higher up with climate change, our crops are moving more and more up. And of course, this is concerning because how our traditional methods of dealing with Afritoktora continue to strengthen but we still need collaboration with science to see how we strengthen these agricultural methods that we have used for thousands of years to respond to I'm really sorry, we're going over a bit. I hope people don't mind, but I think there are a few more questions if that's okay with everyone. Can I translate to English? What is the process to decide which knowledge you can share and which you can't share? And what measures are taken to preserve sacred knowledge that can't be shared? My answer is there are three ways of my knowledge in the potato park. There is one type of knowledge that it's not shared. Another type of knowledge that it's shared with care. So we have to make all types of measures so that there is no misappropriation of that type of knowledge. And the third stream is the type of knowledge that we share with anyone. It's the type of knowledge that we must well oblige to share with other people because on that depends the food, the livelihoods and the organization. But in terms of specific knowledge, the majority of that knowledge is in the second level. The knowledge that has been misappropriated and with its claims of biopiracy. And the first type of knowledge, the sacred, the type of knowledge that we don't share in any manner. For instance, the knowledge about values, the knowledge about principles, that's the knowledge that we have to share with the knowledge of being in harmony with between female and male. It's the knowledge that we have to share. The knowledge about transmitting it to future generations is the knowledge that you have to share. So there is types of knowledge that you are obliged to knowledge. But the knowledge of the sacred, the knowledge that is related to the use of medicinal plants, the use of the specific species, we don't share. So I have, I think, one last question if that's okay. Well, Casper Charter from Q would like to ask the community if they have plans of how to respond to climate change. Is climate change an active strategy for their seed development? And is preparing for climate change an active strategy for their seed development? Allow me to respond to this. The climate change is a big, it's a challenge for us. We collaborate with scientists in this regard because this is a global problem that requires the connection between the local and the global. This climate change is affecting and is the biggest challenge that we have. So diversity, the diversity of potatoes that we keep in the potato park has provided us the tools for doing this type of research. One of the lessons of the five-year research we have done with the International Potato Center is that even though we have a large diversity, we should be increasing the number of varieties that each farmer has because no all farmers have all the or plant the type of diversity in an even way. But also we need to involve the youth. We need to involve the elder. They have the knowledge about how a type of potatoes we may use to respond to certain type of health problems. And in that way we can respond. And we don't have to, we have to make all the effort to keep this knowledge. Perhaps I have not responded fully, so I'm going to pass to my colleague here. Climate change has been an issue for a few years here. We've been collaborating with universities, research centers and other organizations and doing different type of research. So collaboration is important. Climate change is going to affect the variety of potatoes that we have, but these varieties are so important for people outside. So any type of articulation with scientists and bringing the knowledge that we may not have will allow us to respond. There is a trend that we see in the potato park, all the crops are moving up, and while we may have new crops in the lower part, we are losing many of those in the upper part. So it's a very challenging situation. We may have an extinction of many varieties if we don't make the effort to keep it. We have a very, very quick question, if possible, from Naran. Are all the varieties that have been retrieved, are they all commercially grown? I assume that means retrieved from the international community center. Are they commercially grown? Are they grown for the market? It depends. We first prioritize our own food. The repatriation was done to bring back potatoes that were collected in the potato park, so those are not new varieties. Those are all varieties from the region, and we do not plant them for commercial purposes, but for food principally, and we conserve so that we in the future could have a community seed enterprise, and that would be the best way of connecting ourselves with the market. Okay. Well, thank you so much, everyone, and thank you. Thank you very much for sharing all your knowledge and experiences. It's been a wonderful session, and I really appreciate your time. Thank you very much to everyone at Andes, Jessica, Kike, and particularly Alejandro for all his hard work with the translation, and thank you. It has been a very wonderful session. Thank you very much. Aliancio. Thank you, Christina, and everyone. We want to also thank you. We are very happy to collaborate with you, and we hope that our collaboration continues, and because that has been always important for the organization of the potato park, it's always this exchange of knowledge, exchange of information that provides us more knowledge and provides us with the tools so we can respond to future challenges. Okay. Adios. Fantastic. So thank you very much, everybody. Have a good weekend, and we'll see you on Tuesday.