The loss and maintenance of native crops in mountain agriculture

Abstract

The fate of agricultural biodiversity varies among the native crops produced in a mountainous region. Four native crops (potatoes, maize, ulluco, quinoa) cultivated in the southern Peruvian sierra demonstrate different patterns of cultivar loss and cultivar maintenance. Contingent social, economic and environmental conditions in mountain agriculture shape the distinct fates befalling the cultivars in each crop. Three sets of specific conditions contribute to differences in the patterning of cultivar loss and maintenance: (1) proximate conditions in the local peasant economy, particularly access among agricultural households to land, labor, and capital, and changes in the availability and quality of the three endowments; (2) the social and cultural value of the crop in the local diet and cuisine; and (3) the biogeographic patterning of cultivars. Maintenance of cultivars currently marks the ulluco and quinoa crop as well as many potato and maize types. Cultivar loss besets the fastmaturing potato S. phureja and the slow-maturing maize types. To incorporate variable in situ crop-conservation programs into development planning for montane regions requires thoroughly assessing the contingent conditions for continued production."The post-modern era has moved from genetic erosion to genetic wipe-out" (Harlan 1972: 214) "Genetic diversity in crops continues in many environments, but its continuity is particularly marked in mountain areas" (Brush 1986: 153)

Towards a ‘red list’ for crop plant species

“…On the other hand, in the wellstudied Mediterranean area genetic erosion in crop plants has also reached the species level . This is true also for other areas (Zimmerer 1992;Upreti and Upreti 2002).…”

Situating In Situ: A Critical Geography of Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation in the Peruvian Andes and Beyond

“…Usually, agricultural diversity correlates with linguistic diversity (Maffi )—both of which face pressures under world‐market integration. Agrobiodiversity often persists in mountain communities that have maintained strong agrarian identities and have not integrated into capital‐intensive, export‐oriented, high‐input agri‐food markets: Himalayan (Saxena, Maikhuri and Rao ), Appalachian (Best ), and Andean highlands (Tapia ; Zimmerer ), among others. Accordingly, many centers of world diversity of various crops are found in rural areas with little political or economic power, that bear the brunt of the classification “underdeveloped”.…”

“…Geographers have long explored the human dynamics of biodiverse agriculture, from Sauer () to Zimmerer (, ), Whatmore () to Moseley (). Much of this scholarship has explored how the ecological and economic diversification of agriculture could help mitigate the growing ecological and economic vulnerability of small‐scale farming by providing a foundation of resilience.…”

Changes in farmers' knowledge of maize diversity in highland Guatemala, 1927/37-2004

“…Zimmerer analyzed local changes in crop diversity in terms of cultivars , without drawing conclusions about the broader implications of local cultivar losses, because " [t]he basic regional biogeography of cultivars belonging to almost all native crops remains so inadequately understood that the overall significance of change at a local scale cannot be estimated" [ 6 ]. (A useful and broadly accepted definition of cultivar is "a variety, strain, or race that has originated and persisted under cultivation or was specifically developed for the purpose of cultivation" [ 7 ].)…”