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Category: Misc.

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The International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) held a conference in Lima this past week. The title was: 'In Defense of the Commons: Challenges, Innovation, And Action.' They had a program with sessions Monday-Wednesday, field trips on Thursday, and a final day of sessions on Friday. The conference was held in the Pontifica Universidad Catolica del Peru, which has one of the nicest campuses I've seen:

The main sessions I attended were on Friday and were organized by Bioversity International, and focused on PACS, Payments for Agrobiodiversity Conservation Services.

Some of the audience at the conference; the men in the foreground of the picture are from Cusco, Peru. Every region of Peru - and particularly the Andes - has a different mode of dress; on top of this, in many places locals can tell which town people are from by their hats. (So don't assume everyone's traditional dress looks the same - there is as much cultural diversity as biodiversity in Peru. Also, these aren't their normal street clothes.)

PACS work with local communities to conserve threatened varieties, first by determining what the local varieties are, how much land is planted with these varieties (and by whom), and which varieties should be conserved. Locals have a say in each step of the process and there is competition to find out which communities will participate, building excitement and emotional investment in the scheme. Next, seed is collected; from what I have heard, this can be one of the hardest steps in the process, because there may only be a tiny amount of seed available in any one place. When enough seed is collected, farmers grow the crops; at harvest, a portion of the seed goes to a genebank and the rest the farmers can keep for themselves. In addition, the farmers receive payment of goods; the payment can be shared by the whole community or be parsed out to individual families, and it can be anything from mattresses to processing equipment to building materials: the participants of the program choose what they would like to receive.

In the morning on Friday we heard presentations from a number of speakers, showing how PACS had worked for them. There were examples from a number of places: quinoa in Puno in southern Peru, amaranth in Cusco, Peru, corn in Ecuador, corn in Guatemala, and potatoes in Apurimac in the southern Andes of Peru. In all these cases but one, representatives of the farming communities involved spoke about their experiences, either about the new passion they felt for conservation or the affirmation of their prior convictions. The farmer from Puno came with four samples of quinoa and spoke about how radically her life had changed for the better by conserving these varieties.

I have less blurry pictures, but this guy reminded me of Indiana Jones (it's not just the hat). He's a potato farmer and keen conservationist, key to the program in Apurimac.

After lunch, we broke into working groups of different categories, looking to build upon the experiences of PACS and to make them better. These groups focused on an array of topics: monitoring, conservation (including with traditional knowledge), development of value chains, access to seeds and seed banks, financing and regulation, and finally, public procurement programs.

I ended up leading that last group, considering that I was the one with the most current knowledge base of the four of us who were participating. However, one of the members was part of the administration of Qali Warma in Cusco, so no one in the group was green to the issue.

Public procurement may not at first blush seem like a logical transition from biodiversity conservation, but considering that bringing native varieties securely out of danger requires having enough land devoted to its cultivation and a market for its sale, public procurement makes sense. If a government prioritizes biodiversity, it provides a ready-made market for these varieties and products made with these varieties.

Our group spoke a lot about the twin routes for change in the system: producers need to be empowered and organized, linked with financing but also with small businesses that can make products of high quality that could be sold to the government for its programs. In return, the government must make sure that the door is open to these producers and these businesses.

Nasturtiums.

Of course, this is much easier said than done. Given the sheer number of receipts that the program has to manage, sourcing from places that would provide smaller quantities would bog down the bureaucracy, and sanitation requirements would incur costs of money and time for farmers. However, it was the consensus of the group that these changes are valuable and worth the trouble.

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In the readings I have sifted through and in the conversations I have had, corruption is nearly always mentioned as a key problem in Peruvian government. I'm told it's hard to get things done because the money that is allotted for various uses gets siphoned, sometimes every time it changes hands. (I have no hard proof for this, but it shows at the very least how little faith there is in the government.)

Changing Qali Warma would necessitate changing who has responsibility for the program's money, which poses problems. How do you vet people at different levels of government or in the public? Having a strong accounting system with a high level of transparency is both difficult to achieve and highly necessary.

Corruption also damages confianza (trust, fraternity); in an environment where corruption is always expected, people who show passion for a particular project are looked at askance. What is their interest in the project? Do they have the power to mishandle or appropriate money? People with genuine intentions have been minimized in their places of work because of this fear.

Confianza is a very important word in Peru: if there is no confianza, there will be few advances, as each player will constantly be looking over his/her shoulder. Communities receiving the benefits of new or changed programs need confianza in the government or organization affecting the changes, need to know that intentions are pure.

Qali Warma is in a unique position to change how people feel about the government as a whole: if Qali Warma can provide a stellar, safe service, it would be a potent message to the public: there are good people in government who care about you and your children.

For information about solutions to corruption in public procurement, read Transparency International's Manual:

Found at:
https://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/publication/curbing_corruption_in_public_procurement_a_practical_guide

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A quick aside: In the past couple of weeks, there was a story going around that a student in the department of La Libertad had died after eating food provided by Qali Warma. This, understandably, freaked out a lot of people.

It turns out that the student died for reasons not connected to her school meal - but I wonder about the damage done regardless. The retraction is always less of a story than the splashy headline that precedes it.

https://www.expreso.com.pe/actualidad/muerte-de-menor-no-fue-por-alimentos-de-qali-warma/

Qali Warma has had problems with food safety in the past, sometimes on a scale of hundreds of students, but it's important to sift the fact from the fiction.

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Yesterday I attended a symposium on anemia in Peru and how we could fight it by using the rich biodiversity of this country. There were many impassioned speeches about how people could use their local resources to combat this serious problem.

When I say that it is serious, you don't have to take my word for it:

MIDIS "Plan Multusectorial Contra La Anemia," 2018.

This shows the prevalence of anemia in all of the departments for children between 6-35 months. The most severe case appears to be in Puno (in the south, bordering Lake Titicaca), though many of the other departments are also staggering. It's noteworthy that even the places with lower incidences of anemia aren't under 30%.

However, it is encouraging that the government is taking this seriously and making an effort to include as many ministries as possible; one of the presentations yesterday was given by the Vice-minister of Policy and Social Evaluation of the Ministry of Develpoment and Social Inclusion (MIDIS, the ministry that also runs Qali Warma) - some of the concluding slides included tables that showed how each ministry could contribute to the overall efforts of the government.

I was struck by the passion with which everyone spoke, each with their own approach and range of foods that they proposed could advance the cause. There was a researcher from CIP (International Potato Center) who spoke about biofortified potatoes that contained more iron than usual; a professor from Ayacucho spoke about using traditional plants as a way of fighting anemia and regaining culture; another professor spoke about fortifying biscuits with quinoa, tarwi (Andean lupine), and moringa.

This is a scientist from the Institute of Investigations of the Peruvian Amazon; he spoke primarily about camu camu, but also took a moment at the end of his slideshow to highlight a couple of other rainforest fruits with high nutritional value.

There were also a great many people in the audience from the private sector, as well as people representing their municipalities; I spoke with a few of them during the cookies-and-juice phase of the event. Considering the level of concern, it's likely that the numbers of children with anemia will go down - not if, but when.

I asked a question at the end about how Qali Warma could be made better by adding more diversity to the food handed out, and was told by someone who works for MIDIS that from their perspective, more biodiversity would be great, but that the food included in the program needs to be available year round, in the right quantities, and above all, safe. I've noted this in my readings - food safety is a big issue - but it was interesting to see it emphasized in what he said.

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I made it to Lima in the early hours of Monday morning.

This flower is called Copa de Oro, Cup of Gold.

This isn't my first time in Peru; I spent about a year and a half here as a Peace Corps volunteer.

A very healthy corn palm.

I've already started work in the office of Bioversity International here - which is on the grounds of CIP, Centro Internacional de la Papa (International Potato Center). I'm taking my first concrete steps towards the interviews and school visits that I plan to undertake as an integral part of the research, as well as ironing out more of my literature review.

In my few off hours I've been reacquainting myself with the country and rediscovering things I had half-forgotten.

On a street near where I am living; the flowers on top of the white wall are called Papelio; there is a rose in the middle ground and a bunch of other stuff I have no names for in bloom.