 I would like to start by welcoming everybody joining this webinar. My name is Christina Swaderska. I am a researcher at IID. I lead the IID work on bio-cultural heritage. So I'm thrilled to open this webinar series on Indigenous People's Food Systems and COVID-19. Indigenous peoples have sustained a very rich diversity of crops and livestock based on their knowledge systems and cultural and spiritual values. And this bio-cultural heritage has proved highly resilient, not only to climate change but also to COVID-19. So today we will hear evidence of this from Indigenous peoples in Kenya and Peru and then next Tuesday the 14th and we'll hear from Indigenous peoples in India and China. And so I would like to introduce Alejandro Agoumedo, who is the International Coordinator in the International Coordinator of INMIP. INMIP is the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples and Alejandro will chair the webinar series. He is also President of the Board of Directors of Associación Andes Peru. So before handing over, I just briefly would like to introduce INMIP. This is a global network of Indigenous mountain communities and their partner organizations. It spans 11 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. It was established in 2014 in Bhutan and it seeks to protect and revitalize bio-cultural heritage for community resilience and food sovereignty. It has held already four global community to community learning exchanges in Bhutan, Tajikistan, Peru and Kyrgyzstan. And these walking workshops have been highly effective for sharing innovations, for building capacity and for mobilizing action to protect the unique bio-cultural heritage and landscapes of Indigenous peoples. So that's by way of opening. I will now hand over to Alejandro Agoumedo, the chair. Thanks. Thank you Christina and thank you everyone for attending this exciting webinar. INMIP, as Christina said, is a broad alliance of Indigenous peoples, communities and organizations across 15 mountain countries all over the planet. And one of the key issues that INMIP as a network focuses on food sovereignty and the defense of Indigenous food systems, particularly in mountain ecosystems. We all know that at the UN, all countries pledge to Agenda 2030 to end hunger and poverty on all the planet over the next 10 years. This, as we know, is going to be a hard goal to achieve as the number of hungry and malnourished peoples is on the rise worldwide. And we believe that this is because of these decades and decades of free market neoliberalism that have caused poverty, inequality and above all resource and land grabbing as well as environmental, economic and social injustice. We live now in this context of COVID-19, which has exposed how this industrial food system and these globalized food systems that we live in or we have with us is contributing not just to inequities but also to ecological destruction. We see soya plantations in Brazil and Amazon, land grabbing happening at a large scale in African Asia and all that has pushed all this jumping of viruses and through humans and these large pandemics that we are facing. And the response from governments to this pandemic has been also highly negative for communities in cities. We have seen loss of jobs and at the beginning of the pandemic we've seen that the lockdowns have not allowed people to continue to practice their traditional food systems. But while this COVID was a blow, particularly for cities, also it has shown how indigenous peoples and communities have tools and strong resilience that has responded to this global crisis. While in many countries the narrative of COVID recovery is being we promoting in a way that promotes more the productivity at any cost. Indigenous peoples' food systems and the biocultural dynamics at a local level show a different picture. And this webinar is meant to tell that story. It has organized the participation of the countries where even members are creating or weaving different types of alternatives will tell us a story of hope where from within, from the ground, members are creating different food systems that may provide a picture of how from localization of food systems we can weave a large global system that can respond to this crisis. And also at IMIP we have been very concerned and critical about the upcoming food system summit. This is because we believe that this summit rather than focusing and strengthening these localized food systems that are around the world are responding or have responded to the crisis and have provided alternatives and keep feeding most of the other people affected by this pandemic and not being supported by the national governments. It's urgent that if we want to transform this unhealthy and just and sustainable food system we need to have to shape this differently. We need to base it on human rights, on Indigenous people rights and we need to challenge it from the ground. This is a very critical moment for Indigenous peoples. It is critical that we organize this because fundamentally we want to ensure that the realization of food sovereignty and the right to food, the right that local people have to adequate food but also the right of participating in policy making and the right to defend our food producing habitats and ecologies. Those are the spaces where people have the social relations and where the knowledge is weaved, is shaped, so the territory is at the cornerstone of food sovereignty. Having said that, today we have the participation of two IMIP countries, the Rubai communities in Kenya and the Potato Park in Peru. Both approaches, both initiatives are grounded on human rights, on people rights and are looking for system change and based on justice. We see that these initiatives are a response to their corporate interests that dominates the food systems in each one of our nations and we want to build a relationship with the public institutions that should be supporting these initiatives rather than creating the spaces for more corporate takeover of the public policy making as it's happening in the food system summit. So these are solutions that are responding to the multiple crises that we leave, the food crisis, the economic crisis, based on the experiences that people have on living on those lands for hundreds of hundreds of years. This is also an effort that seeks and pushes the government to regulate more so that the corporation takeover of the food systems and particularly to stop land grabbing on indigenous lands and we want to democratize research and we want to reclaim the public institutions that are now being co-opted by the corporate interests in our countries. So now we have this briefly we'll have a short introduction by the coordinator of the IMIP country in Kenya so he would present the short program that we have for Kenya, a short introduction and we will invite Chemuco to please take the floor and follow with the introduction and the traditional ceremony that our brothers and sisters from the rabbi community prepare. Chemuco, the floor is yours, thank you. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'm going to give a short summary of the rabbi community. Sorry we had a small technical challenge and rabbi community is a community that is based in coastal Kenya with a population of about 120,000 people and the area of coverage is about 20,000. And this community is one of the indigenous communities that you find in coastal Kenya in an area with a lot of rich history because this is where Christianity began in the country and also education but the community has stuck to their culture, their tradition, their heritage and for over 10 years now we have worked with this community to be able to conserve the rich acrobatic diversity that we have in the land and other resources because the area is very rich in wild plants, food plants is also very rich in traditional food crops rich in medicine of plant tree species and also rich in terms of the livestock we have. We have other resources like the wetlands, the rivers, the small hills that occur within the landscape that forms part of the territorial landscape that we have in rabbi. And with those many years of working together we have been able to come up with a cultural village that we are working to expand and scale it up into a biocultural heritage territory based on the experience that we learned from Peru, the potato park, the water that is being led by Alejandro. So we have several, maybe just to mention, several crops that are commonly grown cassava being one of them, maize, coconut, green grams and a cowpeas which is like an emblemic species for the community. And that is just a summary of the community. So I have a team that I work with, the technical team, I just want them to say their names and then see it, then we will have a traditional dance performed by the rabbi community. Then from there we will fall up on the presentation. We have four presenters who will give a presentation on the various aspects of territorial land management practices that are being undertaken. So I will start with my colleague, where she will say her name and what she does. I'm Caroline Mania, a technologist at Schkenia Forest Research Institute. I work with the rabbi community and support them mostly through training on territorial landscapes and management practices, which contribute a lot towards in-mip activities. Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Layland Alilo. I work with the Kenya Forest Research Institute. I'm a social scientist and I look at the linkages between people, their cultural heritage and the connection to conservation. Thank you. Thank you, my colleagues, for the introduction. The members are community members. They will come on during the presentation. So I wish to call upon the community members to perform our dance for five minutes. Thanks for the rabbi community to the next session, where we are going to have presentation from the community. The community are going to present on various aspects of the landscape, including the agro-biodiversity and how they are using this agro-biodiversity to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. They will also talk about COVID-19 pandemic effects to the community and how it has affected them and how they are responding to this using the traditional knowledge, the rich agro-biodiversity, the indigenous food systems that we have in place. And during this presentation, we will be done in Swahili. We will have to lay the translating it. I am calling upon the first presenter, Lenox, who is one of the youth members and makes his presentation. Lenox Karibu. Thank you, Mr. Chamukko. My presentation will basically be about the rabbi landscape. Rabbi landscape has about nine different crops varieties. This includes also traditional vegetables, ambazo, very nutritious and also medicinal. That's why you can see the old members of our community, like the car elders, at their age, they are still very strong compared to us. Now, because these traditional food crops and vegetables are medicinal, we believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is not easy to attack us because these foods that we are taking are very nutritious and they boost our immune system. That is one. Lenox just mentioned that the rich food from the rabbi community is very nutritious. That's the traditional food. So it helps in boosting immunity against common diseases. And also in terms of improving local economy, they have the astronomy group anchored in the rabbi cultural village where they are able to sell traditional cuisine to visiting tourists and they are able to generate money that goes directly into supporting the local community. We believe that the food that we are taking is very nutritious and the way that we are growing is very nutritious, and the way that we are growing the food is very nutritious. So that is one of the things that we believe that the rabbi culture has a very good impact on the human life. We are going to talk about the culture of the village and how it is used in the culture of the village. We are going to talk about how it is used in the culture of the village. Lennox is saying that through their bi-cultural village and the sale of traditional foods to visit in Tuarese, the youth have been attracted to engage in activities aimed at promoting their bi-cultural group activities and also because they need to sustain the supply of foodstuff that they sell to Tuarese, it has cultivated a culture of people growing more and more traditional crops to sustain the supply. And because the youth have realized that it can be a sustainable income-generating activity, they are increasingly participating in the activities of the bi-cultural village and that way the culture is being transmitted to the youth and the cultivation of traditional crops is also being sustained. Thank you for listening. Thank you Lennox for that brief presentation. We were given 25 minutes so we are moving fast. So the next presenter will be Akaya Elda because this is an initiative and we have Akaya kinds of elders that are responsible for the management of the landscape to govern management kind of structure and Mr. Antonio Carrero will come and make his presentation on the road in managing the landscape in preserving agro-biological diversity and also protecting the khayas. So my name is Daniel Moara Guerrero. I am Akaya Elda. I am the chairman of the Khaya Eldas Council and the Khaya Eldas Council is a traditional governance system that is anchored on the local culture of the rabbi community and we manage the Khaya forests which are the traditional forests and also the landscape. So I will explain our role in that. So we conserve the Khaya forests as the Council of Khaya Eldas and this is because of the important role of Khaya forests in sustaining the community, the role it plays in sustaining food supply and also providing medicinal plants which we use to promote our health. So he is emphasizing the role of Khaya forests in providing medicinal plants and he just gave an example of how healthy generally the community is because of the sustained supply of medicinal plants and he also mentioned that even currently when the world is facing the challenge of COVID-19 the community has suffered very minimal effect because of the use of these medicinal plants from Khaya forests and he also emphasized that despite his advanced age as you can see he looks very youthful because of the use of these medicinal plants and also the wild food plants from the sacred Khaya forests. We are also ensuring as Khaya Eldas Council that we transmit the knowledge to the youthful generation so we've been including them in our initiatives to make sure that these knowledge is passed down to them and also the knowledge related to use of medicinal plants to protect the community against pandemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you Daniel for that short and precise presentation. We now move on to the next presenter who is Madame Nuvuno. She's also a member of the rabbi community and also rabbi culture and he's going to talk about some of the recipes that we have for the community and their role to tackling some health related issues and their linkage to the culture of the Miki Kenda community. My name is Nuvuno, I'm a member of the rabbi cultural group and I'm going to talk more about the common reasons amongst the rabbi community. I'm going to narrow down on three types of food, that is yora, chishombo and bumbunda. Bumbunda is a local food that is made from ground banana flour mixed with maize flour and it's called bumbunda. Bumbunda is a local food that is made from ground banana flour mixed with maize flour you cook it together, you pound it and then you make a test out of it. Kishombo is a local food that is made from ground banana flour mixed with maize flour so kishombo is a mixture of cowpeas and cassava, cooked and pounded together so it's a common delicacy of the rabbi community. Chishombo is a local food that is made from ground banana flour mixed with maize flour so the last food that I'm going to talk about is yora, yora is a mixture of maize flour that is mixed with water and made into a pest that is then used to eat alongside with other dishes like vegetables, beans or any other still. So the food staff that I've talked about are very nutritious. They help the members of the community because once you eat you remain full for a very long time. You're able to do manual work like farm work and stay. Yeah, it's unfortunate but I think they will come back. Okay, I'll continue. So Lubuno was talking about the food staff so she emphasized that these food are very nutritious. They help boost body immunity amongst members of the community and they help present them from contracting common diseases and they also help in form of building social cohesion amongst members of the community because these food staff are commonly consumed during traditional ceremonies like when a baby is born, members of the community come together when they are wedding and funeral ceremonies. They consume these foods as a group so they kind of help build social cohesion amongst members of the community. Thank you. So she just added that they really love the food as a Mijikenda community and she thanked the audience for listening to her. Okay, thank you. Now we have the last presenter who is our youth and the one of the challenges we have had is succession because many youth are not taking up farming and also traditional knowledge and don't appreciate even the indigenous food. So we have our youth with us who has been very critical to drive the agenda of getting youth get to participate more in this initiative in the landscape and he's coming to speak to us on what they are doing. So Salma. My name is Salma Chiringa and I'm here to represent you. Thank you. So as a youth, we've been able to learn so much from the elder women about the preparation of traditional foods of the rabbi community, how to grow them in the farm, how to take care of them and also the preparation in terms of cooking methods and we appreciate. So we've been able to learn this mainly during the cultural ceremonies like the rabbi cultural, the new year festival that is held annually and also through our participation in activities of the rabbi cultural village. So as a youth advocate, I've been trying to create awareness amongst my fellow youth for them to be able to appreciate the importance of traditional foods and also to participate in their cultivation as well as preparation especially at home. So thank you so much for listening to me. Thank you Salma. I think at the end of our presentation we had about 25 minutes. So I hand over back to the chair to be guided on the next step. Thank you. Thank you very much to all our brothers and sisters there in the rabbi community and it's so good to hear from you and your experience. Perhaps like we could open for a short questions from the audience if there is any so that the members of the community can just follow up if they wish with some reflections and comments. And to begin I have a quick question for you Chimuko. It's I think something that it's common in the image communities. It's have you have cases of COVID in the community and if there was any fatality due to this pandemic. Okay, thank you. Should I go ahead? I think I will give one of the community members to respond. I just mentioned that as a community so far there have been zero deaths recorded and the attributes that mainly to the medicinal plants that are commonly used by the community as well as traditional foods that they commonly consume. So they believe that has played a very critical role in boosting the immune systems and they've been spared from the fatalities related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you. Is there any question for our member for our participant from our participants. Thank you. We have a question from Mohamed Kadilo. So we take up the question. Mohamed, go ahead. I'm in a group. So we take up the question. Okay, Mohamed is saying that you asked us a question about COVID-19 and he asked to give the response. And the community would want to know how the colleagues in the potato park are handling this. Is the situation similar to what we have or it is different? And if it is different, how? Yeah. And I think this is a good moment to introduce our friends from the potato park, our brothers and sisters from the potato park so that they can also share their experience during this pandemic and also reflect on their own indigenous food system in the potato park. Well, so thank you very much to the rabbi community and the moderators there, and we will now move and introduce to our brothers and sisters in the potato park. I'm sorry to interrupt you Alejandra, but we just have received a question in the chat box. Is it possible for one question? Yes, please. Yes, go ahead. This is a question from Tegan. Guy Tano, would you like to put your camera on and ask it or should I go ahead and read it? Sure, I'll put on my camera. So I was curious if your community has received interest in the predictions that traditional foods and medicines confer both within the country of Kenya and then maybe from outside. Sorry, interest in the protections. Could you, could you explain that a little please? What do you mean? Sure, the protections that are conferred by the traditional foods against COVID-19 and the well-being that they also allow. So interest from who are you interested in knowing about? Oh, sorry, from from outsider. So from people outside of the community, either, you know, within other communities in Kenya or outside other countries, other peoples. Thank you. Yes, we will translate the question to the community they give their perspective, then we are going to add. Leila, can you translate please? So, Planox is going to translate the question to the community. Planox just mentioned that yes, they've received interest mainly from private medical researchers who've had, who wanted to understand more about the rabbi food and medicinal plants and how they're contributing to overcoming the challenges related to COVID-19. And as a result, these researchers have mobilized members of the community, held some discussions with the Council of Kaia Elders, and they've also attended some members of the community have also attended some workshops aimed at sensitizing other communities and sharing information on how their food systems and medicinal plants are contributing to their protection against the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Chamuco. Thank you, Leila. And thank you very much to all the members of the rabbi community. And now I think it's time to move to Peru. And I had a pleasure to introduce to my brothers and sisters in the Potato Park, who will also share their experience during this pandemic, but particularly focusing on how the local food systems are responding. And before that, allow me just to say a couple of words regarding the situation in Peru, where our government have basically abdicated the responsibilities and regulatory functions in favor of purely market-based mechanisms. Our policies in agriculture, climate change, health, et cetera, remind focus on supporting big agribusiness, big corporations. They get tax incentives, very friendly regulations and policies. And the government tries to give more land for agribusiness expansion and very little support to communities in this case. As you know, Peru has been one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic. We have the highest per capita debt in the world. Nonetheless, in communities, and this is responding to your question of my brother there, in communities such as the Potato Park and other communities that have maintained the traditional food systems, also we haven't had cases of COVID and no single debt. And this shows the power of traditional crops, traditional food systems in terms of nutritional value and the immune boosting properties. While people have lost work, their jobs in the cities, people in the countryside doing agriculture and localized food systems are better off because they can sell the products, they have access to food, they have clean air, they have clean water. And therefore, we have had a large influence of people from the city moving back to the countryside, to communities, and that has created different types of problems. Of course, that the communities are solving now. Just recently, as 10 days ago, the Potato Park has shared, I believe, more than 12 tons of potato seeds with neighboring communities because seeds are pretty much in demand. Last year there was no much seed production due to the lockdown and they have been working over the years so they could do this type of sharing. I'm pretty sure my brothers and sisters will be sharing this experience. In terms of the nutritional quality of the foods, you know how quinoa and amaranthus and other types of traditional foods are appreciated in the international market because of these nutritional qualities. That continues to be the main food sources of the communities who source themselves from the landscapes and the food producing habitats, those types of products. And that's why for us this food system summit doesn't make sense in terms of the focus on this multi-stakeholder approaches rather than focusing on supporting, strengthening the rights of local people that produce most of the food. In terms of the world, corporations have tight cover, these UN processes and we would like to see that these are more democratized rather than in these large spheres have these types or have these policies within our own countries and more localized set of police environments like regional or local governments. So I'm going to pass it to my sister Ricardina and to my brother Aniseto who will be sharing these sessions and I think we will introduce this session also with a ceremony there from the potato park and hopefully also they will be sharing some type of cultural expression. Thank you. To begin, in the name of the Association of the Potato Park Communities especially we'd like to welcome everyone who's participating today in the conference and an especially warm welcome to our brothers and sisters in Kenya and we're very glad to be a part of the Association of the INMIP and today we join you from the potato park where you can see our ecosystems and our biodiversity and we have our mix of men and women here to present with you today and to begin, we're going to have a kintuchi ceremony to begin today with our compañero Lino Blessings and welcome from the potato park to begin any activity we need to ask permission from our sacred mountains and here in the potato park and also we'll send blessings to the mountains of Kenya here in the potato park our biggest mountain is in front of us so first a blowing of coca so we have a male mountain and a female mountain we'll send blessings to both now we'll send blessing to the mother earth and in order to do this we will bury our coca in order to get this positive energy to the earth we're grateful for Lino for his ability to start with this kintu today and we're grateful to be here with our sacred mountains today to begin we'll have a short presentation of some music this is how we start always in the potato park with our dances now we would like to share from the potato park our experience and during all these years of our project during all these years we have seen that in large countries that there has been a lot of coronavirus a lot of infections and we've seen millions of people who are suffering in different countries but we have seen and we have lived through this virus that communities and indigenous communities that we've out of a hundred percent had maybe only 10 or 20 percent of people who've had any symptoms and in all of these agricultural communities where we have our native crops and these crops have protected us especially with what we eat and we've had not even one death in these communities of the potato park in the potato park we have a lot of different crops that are especially useful in protecting us from illness and in the potato park we have a great diversity of potato we have colored potatoes which are preventative for different illnesses and thanks to these Indian crops and to our indigenous agriculture we've been protected in these communities we've had we've had no deaths in the in the potato park and thanks to the nature of our communities and thanks to the nature as well which gives us medicinal plants and wild plants and to our traditional knowledge which has been left to us by our ancestors we've been able to use these medicinal plants and thanks to this knowledge we've been protected but we've lived through this pandemic we know that very well that during this pandemic many of our brothers have returned from large cities because they left the community in order to find work in order to study but now they've come back and here in Cusco all of these brothers and sisters arrived during the quarantine and in the potato park we give a donation of potatoes to these migrants even if they weren't from our communities who are passing through Cusco and our ancestors taught us and so as the potato park we were able to give this donation to these people who were living through the quarantine and as well to our ancestors this was an act of solidarity with our brothers and sisters who were living through a harder situation and as well we helped to support children who were left without their parents the potato park made this donation of 10 tons of potato especially colored potatoes and recently we've donated as well these seeds to communities throughout the region of Cusco in order to help regenerate these especially healthy potatoes in communities throughout the country we've worked many years with these potatoes in order to multiply their seeds and especially we've now shared with other agricultural associations and with our brothers and sisters from different communities throughout the region of Cusco this was the participation this was my presentation and now I will introduce my colleague Ricardina I'm very grateful to participate in this conference I'm going to talk about the return of migrants during the situation of Covid and even though it's been difficult from the beginning from the beginning our communities have been well organized and we didn't let anyone come in so that they didn't bring infection and this allowed us not to have to stay close to our houses we didn't have quarantine and these migrants who had gone to live in the cities had to come back and live with us because everything in the cities was very bad with quarantine everyone was closed inside their houses and they were very worried for their children because of this illness many of these people have come back and are now again dedicating themselves to working the land and in the community we haven't lacked anything and our food security in the communities has allowed us to provide food for everyone food security for us is the most important we always have in our storage enough food for the full year so that we never we also have our animals that we take care of not just the crops that we grow including cereal crops, potatoes animals and the production of all crops and we also have our family members who live in the city we are able to provide this food with this is the work that we are able to do in in our agricultural lands and we are not thinking about that we're thinking about if we're going to earn money or not instead what is important is to have our food stored just in case anything happens and money won't help but we're always able to live as agriculturalists our own storage and we're always able to eat our own crops we have no lack of food our food security is based on this storage of food and the earning of money is not nearly as important in life as our food security in the community and this is how our food security system in these agricultural communities of the potato park works now Mariano will present now Mariano is speaking welcome everyone thank you for attending the webinar especially to his great friend Temuku in Kenya to talk about the system of the potato park here in the potato park we have three IUs three communities based on this system of IU our ecosystem, our nature we're having quite a windstorm here right now just is interfering a bit with the connection yeah our deepest apologies this is how the challenges we are going to face from live streaming from the field it could be the weather hopefully they will be back in a minute anyhow I think my colleague Mariano was referring to how this model they have implemented in the potato park has been fundamental for the responses that they have and the IU system brings together three different communities to collaborate, to cooperate, to reciprocate so that these communities can work together and achieve balance the communities of the humans and everything that lives with or near humans and the crops and the crops and hello and then the community of the Saikha which is the community of the wild and where humans don't have much influence while life, the wind, the rain while species of plants etc. and the community of the sacred which is everything that connects people with the spiritual world that also do participate in the management of the landscapes of food producing habitats such as the sacred mountains the places where ancestors continue to support the work of families and the community and that I think it's fundamental in the perception of communities to achieve this balance when humans work with nature and the sacred they achieve this balance that creates what we call sumah kausai when we're here and the communities objectives in the potato park is to achieve that I believe there are making efforts in in the community to restore the connection there is a strong wind in the in the lookout where this transmission was hoping to to carry out from so that we could benefit from the view of the potato park but unfortunately this is not taking place and is while they're trying to resolve I think we could what we could do is open the floor for any comments up to now and we'll try to respond and my colleagues could respond directly without video and in that way we can continue with this transmission thank you any questions? Thanks Alejandro yeah I mean I think it's great to hear from both from Kenya and from Peru how food systems have played such an important role in maintaining health and food security during Covid and it's fascinating to hear that there have been no deaths even though the site in Kenya is only 18 kilometres from Mombasa which is obviously a big city where there's been a lot of Covid and also the potato park is quite near Cusco which is another big city I was just wondering how many actual cases of Covid were there in the potato park I believe the cases were minimum in fact we don't know if those cases were related to Covid do people refer them as cold because they have the same symptoms but because they were not you know the the symptoms were not that you know those critical symptoms that Covid kind of expresses we're not actually sure if they were related to Covid or they were just you know flu or cold probably if we want to know we will have to do some type of test so that we will know if people had a virus and then do more systematic type of analysis of what were those reasons why people have responded in the why the disease had only a mild effect on them but even those cases that are reported as cold or flu were minimum and that's what we're talking about the height of the Covid system and by now we know that you know how the virus gets into your system because it kind of you know gets stuck in what is called the ACE2 which is more prevalent or expressed more in populations that you know have or depend on industrialized or highly processed foods and it's less when in populations that still you know are connected to more organic or more natural type of food production and that's the case of most of the communities that the IMIP network works with so but that needs to be studied that needs to be you know analyzing more systematic ways so that we can know what type of foods are those have you know provided this type of immune boosting properties so that we can promote those types of foods or the combination of foods or the combination of these portfolio foods with medicinal plants because the food system is very diverse and we will have to do a more focused analysis of that but the truth is that there was not a single debt in a country that has the highest per capita debt in the world so that's remarkable and we have visited similar communities in the region and even in the Amazon where the the COVID pandemic has hit very hard and the communities that still depend on traditional food systems do not report debts and or the pandemic had just mild impact so this is really the IMIP has been doing this you know initial enquiry on the impacts of COVID on the communities where localization of food systems and the promotion of traditional foods the heritage foods are it's the focus of the network and all of them have reported no debts and so this may be a trend a global trend that needs to be looked I think with more detail and to show that indigenous food systems are a response to this crisis I think also the second point that is common is that while in the shanty towns of the cities the majority of migrant population leave because they go in search of work and jobs the dream of capitalism and the cities people because of the lockdown because of the health restrictions and how the health guidelines are done in Geneva for the whole world and that's applied by governments with military style like in Peru you have the army in the streets not allowing anyone to work or to go to work so that has created another pandemic of food crisis economical crisis psychological crisis because of how mental health has became another pandemic in people that have been locked down for so long but in the countryside people because how the farms are set up people can go to the gardens people can do work they can open when the wind is very prevalent so those people are more healthy economically they have you know they've been sheltered by their own food systems which are very much connected to the economical activities so there too I think there are elements that we need to look in depth to see how we use those those strengths in terms of how the economy is linked to the landscape how the economy is linked to the agricultural practices that people would production the healthy food that people produce there that can be promoted in a way nutraceuticals are promoted as key sources of food that can help communities in the cities to have a better response to this disease but the truth is that highly industrialized or highly processed food systems are directly responsible at least in the case of Peru Alejandra we have a couple of questions now that have come in I think we still don't have the picture in Peru so should we carry on with some questions yes please okay so we have a question from Selena I can't see your whole name would you like to put your camera on would you like to put your camera on and ask the question or would you go ahead I can put on my camera for some reason I don't know why but thank you first of all for a really interesting webinar it's been really nice to follow this discussion I was wondering how the youth engages with traditional knowledge and if there are any difficulties in that I will ask our friends from Kenya first if they would like to respond to this very important and a question and then if one of my brothers and sisters in Peru could also respond if not I could if they still have problems with the connection I will respond Shemuko is the question about the succession issues yeah how youth are involved in all this process and maintaining traditional knowledge and keeping you know our old bio-cultural heritage to the future and if there is problems with the involvement and if not how are you solving that that's what I understood after the question sorry if I didn't catch it okay thank you I will ask one of the community members to respond to the question and Lenox you can respond to the question about the youth and what are you doing to ensure that a part of this indigenous food systems the culture and the succession to have in it Sisi especially the community you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know you know cultural ceremonies to encourage participation of fellow youth so Lenox is a member of the Rabbi cultural group so he mentions like during the cultural ceremonies that are undertaken in the Rabbi cultural village they incorporate the youth and they bring in attractive activities such as soccer and other forms of sport such as arts that encourage youth participation so through their participation they are able to learn from the elders they are able to observe the cultural rituals that are undertaken during such ceremonies and through that they are able to acquire knowledge from the older generation. Thank you very much. During a very important day of Vibhiana, I want to international youth day to be able to learn from the elders but at this time to learn from the traditional dance, we also ensure that activities such as the international youth day that are ordinarily would be undertaken outside the cultural village we try as much as possible to bring these activities into the Rabbi cultural village as a way of showcasing culture and cultural practices to the youth and through that they've been able to learn a lot from the older men and women and also through the inclusion of youth in the council of Kaya Elders they've been able to learn a lot from a lot of knowledge transmitted from the Kaya Elders from the youthful population. Now most of our forum is about to organize a cultural village to be able to incorporate among us to corner almost five young people who are involved in this process. We have youth members like if you observe the kingly, the a few of our members who are playing the traditional drums are youth so through incorporating them into traditional songs and dances they're able to showcase to other youth that culture can actually be entertaining it can be a source of income because when they play these songs and dances they're paid and also as a result of of mentioning that by virtue of their participation in such forum then they are able to chance who are creating awareness on the establishment of the biocultural territory heritage in the Arabi community so through this direct engagement he mentions that the youth are beginning to appreciate the role of culture and the increasingly being involved in traditional knowledge based activities. Thank you. Thank you very much. In the case of the potato park perhaps if you allow me and Matt I don't know if this is possible but well I would like to share one example of how this knowledge transmission is taking place by showing you a very short clip of how kids are involved in poetry emphasizing that for knowledge transmission the maintenance of the local language is key if the kids continue to speak the native language like in our case the catch word language then knowledge transmission will happen in the traditional way the way our elders tell the stories about the nature itself of our foods how our potatoes have a spirit how they talk to other crops and all the different legends that enrich the imagination of children and I think that's the best way how this learning and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge happens so for you to see just one little clip of that allow me to to show this this is a very short example of how kids participate in the potato park this little girl had tell how she sees the relation of herself to the potato and how the florist the flowers of the potato might more beautiful the world and how it also helps to feel better not to be sad and to be connected to the land so those are how those are some examples of this is one example of how the potato park works with the kids they have this contest in all the local schools in the local language and this contest of poetry to the potato just makes the kids to be more connected with the food system more connected with the traditions are more connected to expressing those in the ways they see you know they own grown as a person and people of the future it's it's framed so I don't know that I think I just wanted to try it out or to show how this is done in a potato park in a more graphic way Christina yes lovely that was thank you and we have one question from Anderson from Kenya a question for Peru which I'll read out to save time they seem to have a perfect food system what specific market plan do they use to ensure sustainability um that's a good question and thank you and Anderson for that important question the potato park has seen different ways of marketing its products but as I said in the at the beginning you know the regulations or the incentives that the national government provides for communities are not there so it's very difficult to get engaged in the market when the market doesn't have you know the doors or the mechanisms or even just a small window that would allow the communities to you know sell the products in a better way um nonetheless the uh the communities have a trademark it's called the potato park um you know collective uh trademark and along with iid and also the communities of imit we are working in developing what we call a biocultural indication this indication would serve us uh not just um you know as an identifier of the quality of our products but also as a certification scheme that are linked to our mountain environments so if we have this type of certification from mountain communities uh probably we would call it mountain stan like one country and so we think that with that we could join efforts uh to see how we better uh are connected to markets in a just and um you know more equitable way Christina yeah thank you um that's the end of the questions for now um so over to you Alejandro thank you Christina and um so um we thank you everyone I think we are at top of the hour and that was um all the time we had so we had no more questions um I think uh my last reflection in this is that um the upcoming food system summit is an important event unfortunately it has been kidnapped uh by the by the corporations and um the participation of communities are being used to create this false impression of participation of engagement and while those spaces where public policy is defined are important uh I think we have to reclaim by showing also our support to the alternative um people summit that civil society organizations farmer groups and other research and scientists that support the indigenous and the peasant food systems and the agroecology responses are engaged in I think we need um uh a unified voice of those that do do not believe that the corporate uh solutions are the solutions for the world so we invite you to um continue supporting uh this alternative um people's food system that most communities are uh supporting from the field and engage them thank you so we thank you very much and I'll leave Christina for the last words thank you very much it's been fascinating to hear from the rabbi community and the parque de la papa so thank you so much to the communities for your efforts and uh I think the message I got from from here is that there is uh quite clear evidence to indicate that food systems which are strong in traditional medicine medicinal plants traditional crops do uh provide a stronger immunity against covid and also I understood that the self-sufficiency in these food systems um you know they don't they store the food they don't have to depend on the market and access to market and that has ensured food security so um and as Alejandro indicated you know this this is a very strong indication that indigenous food systems are highly resilient and um to global pandemics and I think it's an important avenue that requires more research so thank you so much to all of you it's been really interesting and I hope you can um join us for the next webinar which is next Tuesday 14th of September um which will focus on communities in India and Peru um sorry India and China thank you so much thank you Christina and thank you to IID to Matt and to you to all the team communications team there for your support and our apologies the apples and the winds of the potato park um word I think on holiday today so that really and allow us a good connection thank you