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Home to all types of tubers

Thousands of varieties of potato seeds are kept in a gene bank in Peru.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 25, 2007

AYMARA, Peru - The humble potato puts on a dazzling display at 13, 000 feet above sea level.

Along the frigid spine of the Andes, men and women in bare feet uproot tubers of multiple shapes and colors - yellow, red, blue, purple, violet, pink with yellow spots, yellow with pink spots; round, oblong, hooked at the end like walking canes or spiraled like spinning tops.

Their names in Quechua, the ancient language of the Andes, evoke an intimate human connection: "best black woman, " "best red woman, " "makes the daughter-in-law cry, " "like a deer's white tongue, " and "like an old bone, " to name a few.

Respect for the many variations of potatoes is so profound among Aymara's 650 villagers that it was a natural place for the world's agronomists to produce seeds for a gene bank to preserve their diversity. The cold climate also protects against parasites that infest low-lying potato farms.

In their harvest this year, the villagers gathered more than 2, 000 types of potatoes from a 2 1/2-acre field. Scientists from the Lima-based International Potato Center were there to replenish their bank and provide more seeds to Andean communities.

The center was founded in 1971 as a nonprofit, internationally financed research institution to improve production of potatoes and other root crops in developing nations. It maintains the world's largest collection of tubers - 4, 500 types, including 3, 000 from Peru. They are kept as plants in test tubes or in cold chambers.

It's one of some 1, 500 gene banks around the world responsible for helping maintain biodiversity of food sources. Their scientists search for plants with certain traits - such as resistance to cold, drought, insects and diseases - that can be bred with commercial varieties.

The potato originated in the Andes near Lake Titicaca, 12, 500 feet above sea level, in what is now Peru, and has been eaten for at least 8, 000 years, according to the center. It eventually became the world's fourth most important food source, after wheat, corn and rice.

The center, which provides seeds to communities that have lost their crops to diseases, freezes or a leftist insurgency, began helping Aymara in the 1990s.

Like other villagers, village leader Carlos Hidalgo and his wife each eat an average of two pounds of tubers at every meal. Their four children eat almost as much. That's about 15 times what Americans consume.

The women of Aymara rely on their ancestral knowledge of each tuber's virtues as they sort at harvest time, deciding which to eat, sell, store for seeds or trade.

"Our parents and grandparents have taught us since we were children, " said Susana Hidalgo Avila, a mother of six. "The knowledge is part of our nature."

[Last modified June 25, 2007, 01:10:24]