 Okay, well, I think we'll get started now. I'm very happy to introduce this webinar. A very warm welcome to everybody joining. My name is Christina Swederska. I lead IID's work on biocultural heritage. I'm thrilled to open this webinar on Indigenous People's Food Systems and COVID-19, which is being organised by IID and INMIT. INMIT is the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples. So this is the second webinar in the series of Indigenous Food Systems and COVID-19. In the webinar last week, we heard how INMIT communities in coastal Kenya and the potato park in Peru have experienced very little impact from COVID in terms of both their health and their food security, despite being near big cities which were badly affected like Mombasa and Cusco. So in these Indigenous mountain communities, as well as other rural communities in these areas with Indigenous food systems, there was not a single COVID-related death. The communities that we heard from believe that this is due to their Indigenous food system and the diets that they have which are very rich in medicinal plants and in diverse native crops with medicinal properties. So they believe that has boosted their immune system. And their food systems in these communities also ensured food security despite the lockdowns that these countries were experiencing. The potato park even produced large quantities of surplus food and seeds which they shared with other communities. So in the webinar today, we will hear from other members of the INMIT network, Indigenous mountain communities in Guangxi province in southwest China and also in Lepcha and Limbo communities in the eastern Himalayas region of China. I mean, sorry, of India. So just to introduce briefly INMIT, it is a global network of very innovative mountain communities and their partner organisations. It spans 13 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia and it seeks to protect and revitalise bio-cultural heritage for community resilience, food sovereignty and holistic wellbeing. Since 2014, it has held global exchanges, learning exchanges, bringing together all the mountain communities from different countries and these exchanges have been held in Bhutan, in Tajikistan, in Peru and in Kyrgyzstan using a walking workshop methodology, so walking through the landscapes. And they have been highly effective for building the capacity of communities for sharing innovations and for inspiring communities to protect their unique bio-cultural heritage and food systems and landscapes. So INMIT plays a critical role in protecting genetic resources and Indigenous food systems for global food security today and in the future. Its members are communities in centres of origin and diversity of crops like the potato park in Peru, the apple park and wheat park in Tajikistan and other communities protecting apricot diversity and walnut forests in Kyrgyzstan and here in China these communities have rich diversity of waxy maize and rice and in India they have many different varieties of crops including dry land and aromatic rice in the Himalayas and all these communities also sustain a wealth of underutilised species. And so they also continue to link wild crop relatives and domestic crops to enhance resilience to climate change. So following my introduction I'm going to hand over to Alejandro Argumedo who will chair the webinar today. Alejandro is the International Coordinator of INMIT and he is also the President of the Board of Directors of Associación Andes, Indigenous NGO in Peru. Over to you Alejandro. Thank you Christina and good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone and we thank you very much for your participation in this webinar of the INMIT Network. As Christina has mentioned INMIT is a broad alliance of communities and Indigenous peoples organisations across 13 countries in mountain regions and we since over 10 years now are part of this global struggle for food sovereignty and maintaining the vitality of Indigenous food systems. Our overall vision are holistic communities that not only are resilient but maintain that Indigenous vision of living closely and in harmony with nature with Mother Earth. And so our work over the last 10 years has been one of making more resilient and viable our food producing habitats and mountains but also our concern for our own territories and the rights associated to Indigenous peoples particularly those that have been sanctioned by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. INMIT has pledged, all the members have pledged to move and promote Agenda 2030 particularly in terms of how we can contribute to end hunger and poverty in the mountain areas. However over the last 10-15 years we have seen how hunger and especially undernourishment has rise widely worldwide and the COVID crisis which is a theme of interest of this webinar has exposed how the industrial food system and these globalised food systems that dominates the world now has contributed to ecological destruction and we see the expanding soya plantations in Brazil, cattle ranching and different types of extractive industries in Amazonia and Africa and other parts of the world so that those activities are in fact directly related to this jumping of unknown viruses and animals and moving into humans and therefore creating these types of pandemics Indigenous peoples have faced this type of pandemics over the centuries since contact and the colonial period in the different countries and though the resilience is there these types of new global pandemics obviously are resulting in unprecedented loss of livelihoods particularly for people living in isolated areas like mountains we see that the global policymaking has been trying to make efforts to solve this problem but this unfortunately has moved towards supporting more of the same the current food system summit that will be taken place at the end of this mountain in New York it shows how governments are abdicating their responsibilities and their regulatory functions that they must have favouring market-based mechanisms and this new idea of a stakeholder approach which allows governments not to have the responsibility that they should have in terms of responding to the needs of their citizens so in our view there has been a corporate capture of this policy space and this is preventing efforts that already have been made within the Commission on Food Security of the FAO in Rome and is causing more marginalization and discrimination particularly for small farmers this poses a structural challenge and we have discussed these issues and concluded that we have to participate in an alternative way and express not just our concerns but our commitment to maintain our food producing habitats our ecosystems healthy and provide the healthy food, the diverse food that indigenous food systems have been provided over the years whatever decisions are going to be made I think are going to affect directly our health environment the climate adaptation that is pretty much needed, social and economical governance of the association between the communities and the national governments so it is within this broader context that this webinar is taking place we want to ensure that the voices of communities in these mountain regions are here and that the right to adequate food that communities have and the relation to the land which is the basis of most of the economies of small farming communities and all the communities that populate mountain regions are considered in these discussions I think it is very urgent a transformation of these food systems that we have but we need a transformation that is grounded in human rights and indigenous people rights and in a system change for justice and for inclusion of small farmers and communities across the world and we need a space of policy making that is not dominated by corporate interest and we have to stop this attempt to replace national institutions or international public institutions with multistakeholder platforms where corporate interests easily dominate the discussions and any type of possible solution that will be proposed so EMIF has committed to keep working to create solutions that are holistic that attacks this multiple crisis based on the traditional knowledge on the thousand years of experience of farmers and mountain communities and we are going to continue advocating and making a big part of this struggle to dismantle this corporate power in the food systems which at the moment and unfortunately many of our governments is increasing their power and the regulatory options that we have in favor of corporations we need to democratize this process and increase participation of communities in a meaningful way so without a mind I am very happy to introduce my colleagues from China and India who have this fantastic experience that Christina has mentioned in the eastern Himalayas and in the Wanshi and Yunnan regions of China so I will pass the floor to our dear friends in China in the stone village Hello everyone, my name is Yiqin Song and I'm the representative of China's leader of the image of China China is at the initial very first group who joined EMIF and joined both with other EMIF countries and we have more around 40 mountain communities in our EMIF network and most of those communities are in Guangxi and Yunnan as Alejandro just mentioned Yunnan and Guangxi are south of China are the mountain communities with very rich agro diversity and bio culture so with those communities we are working more than 15 years for example in this mountain community we are working with this mountain community since 2000 until now the first entry point is agro biodiversity conservation and utilization through PPP doers that's why we choose Ma San who represents China's EMIF country case these times and very importantly our EMIF mountain community has played a very key role in the past year during the COVID-19 and they are trying to adapt to this COVID-19 crisis using their community seat bag and they have a seat in their community seat bag and they can do their agro ecology and they even form into farm cooperatives and it changes their vegetables and food with neighboring communities so they have done amazing work so this is not only in this community also in other communities we have published one report about the mountain communities roles during COVID-19 in the whole countries more than 30 communities have joined forces and not been conducting a COVID-19 crisis this is one aspect in the other aspect they are also coping with climate change every day in the spring they have a spring down and the summer big flood and also increase past the past in the inside but they are trying to use their biodiversity to use their customer laws to use their traditional wisdom they are coping with all those crisis and continue their farming and produce food and healthy food to do agro ecology so it's very important they emphasize those roles and support those mountain communities to sustain our food systems this is what I want to emphasize here and today there are a number of community members, community leaders and even the leaders from GMAs Research Institute joined our meeting here because today we have a big ring outside we have less than what we expected some community members they live a little bit far they cannot come but still they try their best to come together in here and then they also have a some they also want to show our landscape and the cultural performance but limited by the by the better and also the time so we're trying to put together a five minutes cultural performance so we started to show the cultural performance thank you Rongyue Lu from Shanggula village of Ma Shan in Guangxi provinces in China so to the IMF giving me the opportunity to represent China community member to share cultural practices to everyone here today here we have an old saying about our landscape our landscape consists of 90% rock and 10% land so with very limited air ball land we also face severe challenge by climate change we have spring drought and summer floods during the year so the people's livelihood here is also constrained by these situations so a lot of our young people go to the city to work so back in 2001 I'm very happy to meet Yiqingsong from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Lanqiuqin from Guangxi Maze Research Institute with their support we started our project here in Guzhai so what we started is we start to collect our traditional land races and start to replant those land races in our field with the characteristics of the land races we went back to the traditional circular farming models so we don't use chemical inputs in our land anymore and every household is trying their best to join forces this is the best model for us because the input is small for us and we try to pick out the best suited local variety to test out the market and try to link to the market so during these 20 years to work with the farmer's seed network with a lot of experts and scientists and policymakers coming to our community we also brought in our way of thinking and we decided is the term to establish a farmer's professional cooperative to establish our own trademark to link to the market so with the improved livelihood our community members now realize is not just about getting better yield it's also about getting more nutritious and healthier food to feed their family so every member of the cooperative is doing their best to conserve biodiversity and the sustainable utilization of this genetic resources so from June 2006 to February 2012 we have been doing community biodiversity register every year through registration documentation and community seed plot experiments PVB and PVS we try to sort out the best suited varieties for ecological farming so we coordinate farmers few visits to summarize the good the best practices for the ecological farming and during this period we also revitalize the circular farming of pig, biogas vegetable, maize and also goes back to pig so during this period we tested out we picked out the best suited variety which is the child shoot yeah let us show you what we mean about this variety farmers they don't have to put into a lot of input and the market the market response is very good and we get a fair price for selling this this variety is very good for ecological farming because whoever puts chemical input in the field and it dies right away so it's best suited with circular and ecological farming so we normally plant this variety around November and we start to harvest this variety from April so it goes all the way to October so we can harvest this child shoot for around 8 months during the year it provides the community members stable income during the period and this variety due to the water and soil here actually tastes better than other child shoots variety in Guangxi so we receive positive market feedback and by growing this variety the community cooperative members their incomes doubled compared to growing the traditional maize and maize varieties so with all this solid foundation we registered the Rong Yen professional circular farming cooperative back in March 2012 so back in 2012 we only have 17 members mostly our elders and now we have 373 members including women elders and some male some young male and the planting area also expand from five mu to 800 plus mu so think about it so during the China's poverty eradication implementation period actually our cooperative play a very positive role in improve the poor fat households income level so during the period a lot of household mothers and some elders they used to have zero income in their family and was growing the child shoots they now have average of household average income of 1000 to 2000 Chinese so now every household is very happy especially for some of the females in the community because now they can earn a stable income so they also have a saying in their family now so during the COVID-19 lockdown period back in 2020 during the spring festival season a lot of the migrant workers during the lockdown they were not allowed to go to the cities to work because they couldn't go to the city to work and they just went back to their field to grow the child shoots with their family members and we are not very contained with only have one star variety so during this period we are very positive to do participatory varietal selection to pick out some other locally adaptive varieties other vegetable varieties so with this young labor staying in the village and they are very versatile with the smartphone using so they also use their social media channels to promote and sell these ecological vegetables and receive a positive market feedback as well so as we can see our background is actually the co-operatives co-storage room so Yiqin is trying to open so it may and June this year during the highest harvest season so we receive a lot of the child shoots 13 to 14 young people they join us to go to the nearby cities to promote our variety and try to create more market channels to sell these goods so with the young people joining us they think positively and they are very active to look for new market channels to promote the local goods so we are trying to build urban and rural market linkage so as the co-operative leader I'm very happy to see a trend for the young people they are willing to stay home and help their family to do ecological farming now because they can earn similar wage compared to going to the city to find work so with all the family members staying together in the community we see a more harmonious community here so you only see a few faces now because now is actually our busy time to feed the family and pigs so we gather quite a few co-operative members to represent our 373 members so any questions? we have a few questions in the chat so if anyone has a question would you like to put your camera on and say it directly so the community can see you? Shanta Day would you like to ask your question directly with your camera? If not I can just read it okay so the question from somebody called Su Shanta Day she would like to know do you take the soft portion of the trunk of the banana tree as a vegetable? In India we prepare a dish from that so they would ask if we eat the banana tree here so in India they would take the banana tree out of the trunk and eat it so they would eat it so they would eat it so how many years ago? 7 years ago 7 years ago 7 years ago 7 years ago 7 years ago 7 years ago 7 years ago 7 years ago 7 years ago we also eat it here but we see a different trend for the past 50 years because for the elders here they said when they face full shortage they actually used to eat that to feed themselves but now they also eat it but they eat it as a cuisine Thank you. Somebody from the Philippines say they use the banana flowers, roots, leaves and the trunk for fiber so just to share that with you I would love to know what was the name of the plant that the farmer showed? What type of crop was it? Is it some kind of spinach? It's more of like a squash We'll tell you later, Christina Okay I was wondering, could I ask how were you impacted by the Covid in terms of your health and your food system? Did people die in your community or did you have people very sick or not? And if not why do you think that was? When the pandemic was the most serious, did you have people here? No, no, no Zero, zero infection in this community Why do you think your friends here are affected? We are in the mountainous community and we have very good air quality, I think that's the main reason And isolated also This member is 81 years old 81 years old, she's still a dancer Yeah, and she still goes to the field and work every single day Every morning she goes to the field to pick out the child's shoes, around 10 kilograms This is how healthy she is She's dancing every day Wow, that's amazing Does your food system, all the different varieties that you eat, do you think that has helped you to stay healthy, including in the face of Covid? Yeah, so every month we also eat some wild vegetables, so every month we have fresh harvest, so we have a very diversified food system here That's amazing, I thought it was the rice wine Alejandro said, is it good for drinking rice wine? Yes, it is And also maize, local maize, and I'm cooking the local food Thank you We have one more question from a person in the chat, if that's okay Would you like to say your question? Yeah, thank you for your presentation, very interesting, and I'm quite sort of amazed by this, suddenly this particular shoot variety is becoming popular, particularly with corporatives So I was thinking, you know, is this something that's very special to the mountains or it can be also grown in the lowlands? Yes, and whether this is a drought resistant variety that elders remember it during food shortages, because if there's mountain drought, then does this shoot variety actually sustain the climate change that you're talking about? So I was just interested in the history of it, is it a drought resistant one or not? Yes, it is, but how do you start to grow it? Does it even depend on rice? So it's a drought resistant variety? Yes, it's a drought resistant variety, and it's not only for the mother, but also for the children So it's a drought resistant variety, and it's not only for the mother, but also for the children So actually in this community, they've been eating this, the child squash for a very long time, but before they didn't try to eat the child's shoes Actually, I think Yi Qing came here and taught everybody how to eat pumpkin shoes Yeah, the pumpkin shoes, because these farmers here, they used to use those wines to feed pigs, they don't eat those wines, they only eat the pumpkin or the squash But after Yi Qing came here and taught everybody that, wow, this is very yummy, you should try to eat this and try to eat that, and they started to realise, okay, maybe we could try to eat some of the sheep Thank you very much Irene, and everybody, that's been a wonderful presentation, can we clap? Thank you so much, we need to move on to the India presentation now, but can you translate? But please you can stay and maybe if you have translation, listen to the India one too, okay Thank you, we'll stay Thank you very much So now Naraj, are you ready to provide your introduction please? Greetings from India, so I just introduced a country a little bit regarding the place and landscape where we work, our community will represent it later on So India is a country of around 1.4 billion people, population And though it has the 2.4% of whole land area, India harbours around 8% of all recorded species Including over 45,000 plant and 91,000 animal species 4 out of 34 global biodiversity hotspots are in India, and Eastern Himalaya is one of them 70% of rural households still depends primarily on agriculture for their livelihood, it's in the national level And Lingse and Lingse card, the place where we work and where our farmers has come from are situated at the northeast part of India, it's in the West Bengal And it is bordering with Sikkim, Kucham and Nepal As far as Covid is concerned, at present there are around 400,000 active cases in India, which were once 800,000 during 2020 So it is in decreasing trend Major metro and capital cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore were the initial epicenter for transmission of Covid-19 in India During 2020 pandemic, migrant workers from rural area of plains returned to their village in large numbers This became one of the major cause of spreading diseases in rural India Similarly in our project village Lingse and Lingse card, till early 2021 there was not any single case of Covid-19 And this was highly appreciated and recognized by the state government However, when the migrant workers started coming back to village during 2021, that was the election time also Few incidents of Covid-19 were reported in our villages also People believe that because of natural social distancing, nutritious local food and hard work in the field Made them strong and immune to the infection of Covid-19 in rural area of mountain region Because of the lockdown, overall natural environment has improved in remote areas Many birds and animals started re-emerging People especially youth started working more in the field and agriculture production has improved Because those who have returned from the cities and capital cities to the rural area after this lockdown was declared So they started work, they have plenty of time in the village to work And so production has naturally improved These days people are more concerned about, overall in villages, these days people are more concerned about health And started eating more and more local food India produces self-sufficient food in the country So during the impact of Covid-19 government is distributing rice, wheat regularly to general public free So overall in India there was no doubt of food in the rural area So because they were getting free ration from the government every month There was 6 kg of rice, 6 kg of wheat every month for individuals As for the recent information, 56.6% of the Indian adult population has been vaccinated with at least one dose Also 17.4% of the adult population has been vaccinated with both the doses So this is a brief introduction about that country So now we'll pass on to our families for their individual presentation Or may we play the video clip of So the video is of the Lingse Lingsekar community that's the member of the INMIT network Hidden amongst the majestic eastern Himalayas at around 4,800 feet Preserved in its own traditional charm sits the small village of Lingse Sharing one of its borders with the Nauravalli National Park Lingse comprises of both temperate as well as subtropical zones The inhabitants consist of 5 to 6 different mountain tribes Amongst which the lepchers and the limboes being the oldest settlers One thing that keeps the solidarity within these tribal groups Is simply their love and respect towards the nature When the lepchers came out of the village again and again They ate a lot of food and went to the forest They ate a lot of animals and lived in the forest The house was full of animals There was a lot of water in the river And a lot of old people were living there That was Kapalbhai He was living here in the village He was living there He was living in the Himalayas In the Himalayan region, it is called Meyel Pratam. Meyel Pratam? Yes. If you have a farm in that area, then you can have it in Pasupansi. If you have a farm in Dalbhavari, then you can have it in that area. If you have a farm in Jamal, then you can have it in Dere Patan. In the Adjusen village, we also spoke to the Limbers in order to know about their side of the story. We used to live in the village of Kulagar in 1860. We used to live in the village of Pangdur, Ghaiya, Junelo, and other villages. We used to bring wheat and wheat. The farm was very small. We used to bring wheat to Pangdur and then we used to buy wheat. I eat social food in that way, and my stomach is full of dust. So I can't wait any more until I have food. I have to remember the stories I have heard. It is also beautiful. I have to go to Limbu to have food. I get scolded a lot. I don't feel I have any food though. And health is also our responsibility. We go to open fields and eat the seeds of the seeds. We see the fields of the seeds. We have done it and we have done it. We have not even seen the seeds yet. We have seen the seeds of the seeds in the village. We have seen the seeds in the fields. We have seen the seeds in the village. I don't know. I don't have time to stay at home for a month or two or three months. I have spent a lot of time with them. Now, we are going to go to Mokaili. We are going to go to Mokaili in June, July, August, September. We will go back to Ghaiya in October. We have to go through Sisi, Rituala, Falphul. After the run-out, we can come to Dharimatra. So no matter, it's raining for them. The money will stay for a month or two. They can also keep their money. They can keep the money kept for a month. They also have to buy the machine and the piece of cloth. There are a variety of materials as well. After that, they are going back to Rupera, Kodha. We have to leave the land somewhere. We had to leave the land earlier, but we had to leave it there for a while. We have to leave the land in the form of a lake. We have to pay the land for the land and the land for the land. If we don't pay the land, we will not be able to do anything. We have to do our work for the next few months. With the information from this gentleman, we gathered a group of villagers of different age groups in order to know about the past and the present situations. We have to leave the land in the form of a lake. At that time, we had to leave the land in the form of a lake. We had to leave the land in the form of a lake in the form of a lake. This area is the forest. It was only 3 days old. But now we can take two people for a walk. We have to leave the land and the land for the next few months. That's why we have to pay the money. We have to do all the work we need to do to save money. We have to pay the money for the food. We have to pay the money for the food. We have to pay the money for the food. We have to pay the money for the food. Yes, so much. I'm so sorry, Naraj. I didn't introduce you properly. I just wanted to say this is Naraj Gurung, who is from the Lok Chekna Manch NGO in the Himalayas. Based in Kalimpong. Please continue. Thanks. Thank you, Krishna. So my friend, Nima Lebcha will give his presentation. So what he is doing is he is Nima Lebcha from INXL INXL. So they do all traditional cultivation, traditional agriculture, and they grow almost eight to nine different kinds of cereals, and they don't use any chemical fertilizer so far. They grow almost eight to nine different kinds of cereals, and they don't use any chemical fertilizer so far. What he is telling is besides different kind of traditional cereals, they also grow different kinds of beans family, like almost 30 to 40 different types of beans they grow, and here also they don't use any chemical fertilizer. What he is telling is while doing this cultivation in an organic way, they don't have any support from the government. What he is telling is the different season in a year they get different kind of vegetables from their own field as well as from the forest they collect, which are very nutritious and very, they have all medicinal values in these vegetables. In rainy season they have different kind of vegetables they collect from the field and the forest, and winter season also they collect different kind of vegetables. So all around the year in the different season they eat different kind of vegetables locally formed. Similarly, they also eat a lot of root crops, almost he named more than 10, 15 root crops, which is found in the cultivate as well as some of them they collect from the forest and mostly they eat in the winter. They also do a lot of livestock burying because they do cattle farming, because they need a lot of cow dung manure for organic agriculture. They also eat a lot of meat from these domestic animals. So that is another reason for rearing these domestic animals. Why not? Organic, organic, organic vegetables are used here. The cattle are used to manage the animals. The cattle are used to feed the animals. Besides eating this cattle meat and other things, they also get milk, cottage cheese, butter, and so many other dairy products which they sell and they get cash income. And for cash income, they do some cash crops like cardamom, brumistic, ginger, to some extent potato, they get cash income from these crops. And at that time, due to the lack of air, they are not able to feed the animals. They are not able to feed the animals. Sometimes when there is no good harvest, if crop fails, they have a practice of exchanging seeds from within villages, from village to village. They have a traditional practice of exchanging seeds. So thank you. Hello. You like to ask any questions to him or we will go to another presentation? There are no questions so far in the chat, so why don't we move on? Thank you. So we will go for the next presentation. Hello. Thank you. Okay, what is telling is, as he is pretty sure, he is also from Lingseka, Mr. Dilip Limbu. He is telling like they grow a lot of cereal crops as I already mentioned, maize, pea, paddy, bajra, other things, wheat also. And they get almost 75% of their annual requirement, they grow themself, most of the people. Some of them they grow a little bit less, but mostly they grow at least 75% of the cereals they get from their own field. So one of the most important cereal crop they grow is millet, finger millet, which is important for their rituals. And they make many cuisines from this millet. So one of the most important cuisines is they ferment the millet and they take it as a kind of a beer. So which is required for all the rituals and even in the working in the field, it satisfies your thirst and also it also acts as a food for them. It also gives a little bit of cake, which is good for them too in working in the field. In vegetables, seasonal vegetables, they grow and eat different kinds of vegetables. Some of them have medicinal values, especially the bee, which is also helpful in controlling diabetes and other kind of things. So most the vegetables which they eat in different season, they also think it has got medicinal value. So they collect a lot of vegetables from the forest, and most of them they think that it has got medicinal value. And this chingping and so many other spices like thing, but it is a medicinal plant, they make chutney or pickles out of that in their regular dish. In the case of COVID, they eat a lot of things including chingping, that's why this food is available for the people who gather and gather here, they face lots of illness, like some have to come here to eat, or to come to the hospital and try to apply with blood, and they will get sick somehow. This is not what it's called. It's called COVID, it's called corona. So, what he's telling is this, this fever, cold cough, this kind of problem was earlier. They had severe problems of this kind of problem. They think the COVID and Corona, this disease was there earlier also. And their ancestors and they used to make kind of medicinal herbal herbal medicines of this thing being Hanukpa, that different kind of medicines from the forest, and they used to get it cured. So that is that may be the one reason that in the delays, they don't have any COVID incidents so far. So besides other properties of the medicine, this thing thing has so many other, if you are feeling, kind of not well just generally, that time also they can just use this chimping to rub in your body and it can be useful for them. It is also a very good spices for the meal preparation. Similarly, they have another medicinal plant which is called Chirauta, which is very popular, which is used for when there is fever. They will make a juice kind of thing, Chirauta and eat for recovering from the fever. They believe that because of all these medicinal plants and vegetables and nutritious food with COVID is checked in their village. Okay, should we go to another presentation? Oh yes, please go ahead. So wow, we have two more presentation. Pramkit lepcha from Lingse. Since Pramkit lepcha from Lingse and she says that lepchas are the worst people of the environment. So they have very close relationship with the forest. So because since they have very close relationship with the forest, they have significant amount of knowledge about these plants and its uses. In winter, besides other crops, they eat a lot of root crops in winter. And in rainy season, besides other regular food, they also eat a lot of fish and other animals which are found in the river. So they have a lot of dependency on the forest for their livelihood and they are very hard working. So they consider maize as a king of cereals and they make different kind of recipe out of maize. Since lepchas they have very close relationship with the forest, their life is mostly dependent on the forest. They get a lot of vegetables and other edibles for the forest and they also do fishing and a little bit hunting because since they have the taste of this kind of food. Even now without the notice of the government, they go to forest and occasionally they do hunting, they fishing and collect these edibles. Since they are our elders, they used to eat different kind of this kind of food from the forest as well from the locally grown medicinal value fruits. So our ancestors live for a long time and they are very healthy compared to the younger generation. But at present day because of the taste and the other attraction, people go and buy, people buy a lot of food from the market. Which means they are buying sickness, they are buying illness while buying the modern food from the town. Okay, thank you. Okay now the last presentation. I want to talk about the community research. Especially in our village, there is a lot of community governance. Our village is made up of two different types of houses. Okay, he is Kumar Limbu, a community researcher from Lingse. So what he is telling is like why the COVID incident was not much in their village because the settlement in their village is very scattered. So there is a kind of naturally social distancing is there. Another thing is the food they eat is mostly local and which has got most of the food they eat has a traditional value. And they also know that there are a lot of medicinal plants of which they make small chutney and they also eat a lot of soup out of this vegetables and the face and other animals from the forest. And another important thing is like if there is a little sickness is there like fever or very light fever and I mean not much serious problem in their health, they don't go and sleep in the bed. They will go back to field and they work and they will try to overcome this sickness by working and doing exercise in the field. But in 2021, there was three, four cases of COVID incidents that is mainly because the people who were working in the cities, they came back and because there is a social practice of visiting their relatives. And in the ceremony, they meet people. So that could be the reason like it was spread to three, four people in the village. Otherwise, it's okay like there was no COVID serious situation in the village. Thank you. Thank you so much to all of those who presented and to you now Raj. That was really great presentation and insights into the food system from the farmers. So thank you so much for their presentations. And we do have our hand over to Alejandro and then I can moderate the questions if you like. Thank you, Navaraj and thank you to our both groups presenting this morning or this afternoon this evening. And I think it just highlights the richness and resilience of indigenous food systems in mountains that is similar. And the other cases that we have presented last week and also what our sisters and brothers of Orimontan communities, Vietnam, Tajistan or Greece, Kenya or in the Americas have told us. So I just want to stress again that as a group, I think as a network that is growing and becoming more stronger, also our responsibility is to continue to enrich our systems and keep providing for food to our communities and inspiration to other communities in the world is of utmost importance. And, you know, we have to keep, you know, just going forward. We hope to have the next walking workshop hopefully next year. We're thinking in Nepal with a new member we have the Vertical University and the KTK Belt and looking forward to reuniting all the group again next year. So Christina, I will ask you please to moderate the questions. Okay, thanks Alejandro. So we have a question from Jelena Haynes. Would you like to turn your camera on and also introduce your organization please. Thank you. Great. We, I'm, I'm not particularly registered to any group. I'm working as an individual, I'm working one with indigenous community in South Australia. So I pretty much researches and working with them as a member of the community in arts and cultural preservation. So we have our own garden, so we produce, I'm from the Philippines, so my knowledge we involve it in the garden as well. So we built our garden based on my understanding how I grow up in the Philippines. So that's why I was interested in attending the workshop. So what my husband my husband just went out so he was the one to answer the, ask the question if we, those community presenting mentioning the plants that they're growing in the community. Do they have a list of the plants that they're growing available for us to be able to share it to the rest of the world. The list of different medicinal plants are called distro. Yes, they have that we have the list of the medicinal plants. But then it's in the mostly the local names. So we have to find out it's botanical and other names, English names and all. Because some of the plants that you mentioned, it seems to remember I bring up because I grew up in the mountain in the Philippines as well. So, hearing this plant names that kind of, I vaguely remember what they are, and how they're growing up in my home country so I was interested how those plants survive in the summertime. Because set Australia's summer is quite hot. So I'm just curious how these plants grow up in the, in the hot weather area. I, because it's this medicinal plants are mostly high altitude plants. So in the, in the plains, I think hot climatic area I doubt it may not grow. Okay. Thank you for that. Yeah, welcome. We have one more question. Participants have often mentioned winter root crops. Are there any summer staple root crops. Sorry. They want to ask if you have any summer staple root crops. Yeah. The summer staple root crops are summer transplant clear. Yes. So, in the, hello, I think during summertime, there is no root crops, except to some little bit tapioca, they grow, and from now on, from now onwards, this October onwards, you may start getting the root crops. Thank you. Welcome. I think we'll, we don't have much time left. There's one more question in the chat, maybe Soma KP can ask quickly. I think this will have to be the last question. Are you there, Soma KP? Hello, good evening, good afternoon. Yes, that was my question, particularly from the women of what are their roles and what are the traditional practices of processing and managing their food systems, because seasonality causes shortages. And what is the traditional method or storage of processing to manage the security of food in seasons when there is less availability was my question. And it's not primarily the women's role, as it is elsewhere, especially milk products, meat products, and the pickle in, et cetera, that they mentioned. Hello. What's this telling is like, there is normal way, there is regular practice of storing cereals are there in the house itself, they have a container lighting. And for the vegetables, they have a kind of a fermentation, they do a kind of a fermentation process, which can be like mostly green vegetables. They do fermentation and keep it and they dry it also later on after fermentation and they can keep it for a longer time. Thank you so much. We don't have a huge amount of time. There's some interesting comments in the chat about the incidence of diabetes being relatively lower in the mountain, mountain inhabitants could be related to some types of vegetables such as bitter ground. And that the traditional food systems have been hugely impaired by policies for forest conservation in India. So, unfortunately, I think we've pretty much run out of time, but we have one person with a hand up so very quickly, Sandeep, over to you if you'd like to quickly ask or make a comment. Yes. Thank you very much for these very interesting presentations. I just wanted to ask the speaker who talked about beer made from finger millet being used in a range of different rituals. Can you perhaps say a little more about these rituals, their nature and when do they occur during the agricultural season? Okay, it's very long. So actually, this they call it locally tea, the lepchas they call it tea and limbu they call it tea and other people they call it chang and in Bhutya they call it it's a basically prevail in this whole region and all the community they use this but lepcha they have the more closest relationship with this particular millet fermented millet. So what the old man is telling is when the first the creator created the first gave the cereals to the human human being, he first gave this tea and asked him like with this you have to always worship him like and like he do they use rice grain for they call it just and initiating the puja or worship they do with this fermented millet. So while doing the agriculture practices also if there is paddy plantation tomorrow or mace sowing tomorrow, today itself they have to go to the field and do kind of a ceremony with this fermented millet for and offer this to the the creator or the the deity. So for every reason they use this and another important thing is just this is my observation of this for your information. This there is a way of way of drinking this you know like normally in the village a group of people they stay together and drink it like you see in the picture at the video. Okay so once you put that fermented millet in that container bamboo with kind of a straw you put water there and you have to wait for 15 to 20 minutes 30 minutes to get the real juice out of it. So socially it is important because while waiting for that to get proper juice the people they have a time they will talk. So it's a kind of socializing thing the people exchange ideas they interact with each other. So it is a kind of binding to the society the another important aspect of this this is our findings from the project. Another important aspects of this particular drink is well in the field when they work in the field so they will put water in this particular container with the fermented millet and they go for the work for 15 minutes half an hour. Meantime the whole fermented millet will be extra I mean it releases juice they'll come back the drink. So that will I mean they also they you know suffice their thirst and they'll get little bit of energy also it's a very energetic it gives it's a fermented kind of alcohol little bit so they'll get energy also. So so they go and work they put water in the millet again they go back work they'll drink so it is give a continuous energy reviving kind of a kind of you know like energy drink for them in the field. Okay thank you that was very interesting thank you. Oh thank you so much Naraj and all of the lepcha and limbo men and ladies that presented a big thank you to you. I'm conscious that we we've run out of time so we'll have to close now so I'll hand over to Alejandro you like to say. Thanks Cristina and again thank you to everyone that have joined us for the last couple of hours. We're very very proud of that have built this global network of mountain indigenous peoples and I just want to thank our brothers and sisters and in China and in India and the eastern Himalayas and then Guangxi and we again if even if I am redundant I think we have to look the future with hope. We know that good food diverse food healthy food is our best bet against not just a pandemic but also for our own economical recovery so thank you very much everyone and over to you Cristina for the final words. Well we don't have much time but just briefly to say I think we heard today that the diversity of traditional crops are so important for ecological sustainability but for nutrition and in both India and China the communities emphasize the wild foods and the medicinal plants and I also learned that apart from this nutritious diet you know that the working in the field has kept people very fit and we know that Covid has hit people with diabetes in the west more than other people you know they'd be much more affected so maybe that's a factor which has helped reduce Covid impacts in these indigenous communities. So I just had a final question for Alejandro. Will these results be used in some way to inform the summit will they be documented the key messages from these webinars? I think you plan to produce a declaration from IMIP is that right? Yes IMIP is producing is working on a declaration which will be of course discussed with all members and we hope like to have it before the summit so that the voices of our member communities and mountains can be heard in one or other way during the discussions of the summit. Great well thank you so much to everybody and the key messages will be in that declaration and you know we hope that this community together we can get this evidence this emerging evidence from the field of the great importance of indigenous food systems for our health and food security. Thank you very much everyone I've really enjoyed all the presentations so shi shi ah namaste bye bye bye