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  • The Homelands Blog

    This week: Seven stories about food and the climate

    It’s the biggest week yet for the “Food for 9 Billion” project, with five stories scheduled to air on PBS NewsHour and two on PRI’s The World. Today on the NewsHour, Sam Eaton visits Costa Rica, where farmers and researchers are finding …

  • Sam Eaton

    Food for 9 Billion

    Costa Rica Farmers See Value in Biodiversity

    Sam Eaton

    Food for 9 Billion

    Costa Rica Farmers See Value in Biodiversity

    Scientists in Costa Rica are finding that biodiversity on and around farms can increase yields, lower input needs, and provide protection against environmental stresses.

    Costa Rica Daily
    Gretchen Daily (right) of Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology tags a bird caught in a drift net. Daily and her colleagues have been studying the contribution of birds to pest control on Costa Rican farms. Photo by Sam Eaton.

    Scientists in Costa Rica are finding that biodiversity on and around farms can increase yields, lower input needs, and provide protection against environmental stresses.

    This story was produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting.

    Producer, Reporter, Camera: Sam Eaton
    Co-Producer: Cassandra Herrman
    Editor: Linda Peckham
    Additional Editing: Adithya Sambamurthy
    Translation: Ambar Espinoza
    Transcription: Karishma Suri
    Senior Producer: Stephen Talbot
    Executive Producer: Sharon Tiller

    Date

    June 10, 2013

    Other Contributor(s)

    Cassandra Herrman

    Outlets

    PBS NewsHour

    Tags

    Themes: Food, Environment
    Regions: Central America
    Media: Video
    Other Tags: biodiversity, Costa Rica, full-cost accounting, Gretchen Daily

  • The Homelands Blog

    New Stories to Probe Food-Climate Connections

    Reporters Jonathan Miller, Sam Eaton and Mary Kay Magistad have been in Mexico, Costa Rica, India, Singapore, China, Qatar, Uganda and the Netherlands gathering tape for a series of radio and TV stories about the future of food …

  • The Homelands Blog

    Homelands Project Featured in Diversity Book

    If you’re interested in the relationship between nature and culture, you’ll want to check out the newly released Biocultural Diversity Conservation: A Global Sourcebook (Earthscan, 2010), compiled by the Canada-based NGO Terralingua with support from …

  • Jonathan Miller

    Worlds of Difference

    Andean Harvest

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    Jonathan Miller

    Worlds of Difference

    Andean Harvest

    Peasant farmers in Peru’s central highlands grow hundreds of varieties of potatoes. Now they’re being encouraged to sell them to high-end consumers. But potatoes are more than just food in the Andes – they’re part of a complex spiritual, biological, and cultural universe. Will the market change that?

    The anthropologist Richard Chase Smith describes indigenous culture in the Americas as “a tapestry woven from the vicissitudes of history, place, and daily life.” In the Andes, where daily life sometimes seems like it has been stripped to its bare essentials, that tapestry is far more intricate – and far stronger – than it may first appear.

    Andean culture is a dense weave of the ancient and modern, the mystical and scientific. When planting or harvesting, farmers pay close attention not just to the weather, but also to the moon and stars. They say prayers to Catholic saints and make offerings to Pachamama, the earth mother. They consult with wise persons qualified to read the signs of nature. They listen to visitors: travelers, aid workers, scientists, pesticide salesmen. They watch to see what farmers in other communities are doing.

    And before they make any major decisions, they meet with their neighbors and talk.

    The system is extraordinary both for its complexity and its stability – and biodiversity is at its heart. Farmers in the Andes grow as many as 3,000 different kinds of potatoes, and hundreds of types of other crops. Diversity is not just a source of variety, or testimony to the staggering range of microclimates and ecological zones – it’s also a proven tool against diseases, pests, and other scourges.

    Indeed a major reason for the great famine in Ireland in the 19th century was the fact that farmers there planted only one potato variety, which offered no resistance to phytophthera infestans, the “late blight” pathogen. The Irish disaster remains a powerful metaphor for the dangers of monoculture, both biological and human.

    Lately the world has come to appreciate the value of agricultural biodiversity, as well as of the traditional knowledge of those who maintain it. Not surprisingly, there has been much talk within development circles about how to convert those assets into cash. But many farmers in the Andes are wary.

    “They fear the possibility of losing their portfolio of native varieties,” explains Peruvian economist Manuel Glave. “Because they feel – and they know it is a fact – that the market does not demand 50 varieties. The market tends to demand a more homogeneous product.”

    The market can also be fickle. For decades, Andean farmers were advised to replace their native potatoes with more marketable “improved” or “modern” varieties, particularly at lower altitudes. Tens of thousands did as they were told, then watched the prices fall so low that some years they can’t afford to harvest what they’ve sown.

    But peasant farmers know that standing still is not an option. Even the most isolated Andean communities are fast becoming incorporated into the cash economy. How they manage the transition may determine whether their ancient tapestry will be torn to shreds, or made even more resilient and lovely.

    – Jonathan Miller

     

    Date

    January 11, 2004

    Outlets

    Weekend Edition

    Tags

    Themes: Economy, Culture, Environment
    Regions: South America
    Media: Text, Audio
    Other Contributors: Jonathan Miller
    Other Tags: biodiversity, Peru, markets, potatoes