Highlands Of Peru Research Articles

Rural–Urban Change in Highland Peru: Perceived Impacts and Preferred Performance

Rural–Urban Change in Highland Peru: Perceived Impacts and Preferred Performance

A decision support tool for potato late blight management: Assessing its usability for women farmers to achieve equitable impacts in the highlands of Peru

A decision support tool for potato late blight management: Assessing its usability for women farmers to achieve equitable impacts in the highlands of Peru

Evaluating the Efficacy of Social Innovation Programming at Advancing Rural Development in the Context of Exogenous Shocks

In this paper, we design and deploy an experimental approach to evaluate the efficacy of a social innovation initiative implemented in rural communities situated in the highlands of Peru, which confronted the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the midst of its implementation. Using three rounds of information collected before, during, and after participation, we examine the efficacy of the social innovation economic development approach at increasing household livelihoods. We present robust, statistically significant improvements in household economic well-being, food security satisfaction, and community outlook for participating households compared to non-participating households following program engagement. The results presented in this study suggest that the social innovation program facilitated a notable restructuring of the portfolio of household income and livelihood activities towards more lucrative and value-added pursuits. This transition manifested in increased involvement in entrepreneurial ventures and specialized labor associated with both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors while distancing from traditional agricultural and livestock-related endeavors. The income gains stemming from self-employment activities and wage labor outweigh the losses incurred from reduced agricultural and livestock earnings. Furthermore, our analysis underscores the resilience of innovative income-generating pathways in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, outperforming traditional agrarian value chains. These findings highlight the efficacy of social innovation programming in facilitating economic development and also shed light on sustainable strategies for economic resilience amidst unforeseen challenges such as the recent global health crisis.

Mining genomic regions associated with agronomic and biochemical traits in quinoa through GWAS

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.), an Andean crop, is a facultative halophyte food crop recognized globally for its high nutritional value and plasticity to adapt to harsh conditions. We conducted a genome-wide association study on a diverse set of quinoa germplasm accessions. These accessions were evaluated for the following agronomic and biochemical traits: days to 50% flowering (DTF), plant height (PH), panicle length (PL), stem diameter (SD), seed yield (SY), grain diameter (GD), and thousand-grain weight (TGW). These accessions underwent genotyping-by-sequencing using the DNBSeq-G400R platform. Among all evaluated traits, TGW represented maximum broad-sense heritability. Our study revealed average SNP density of ≈ 3.11 SNPs/10 kb for the whole genome, with the lowest and highest on chromosomes Cq1B and Cq9A, respectively. Principal component analysis clustered the quinoa population in three main clusters, one clearly representing lowland Chilean accessions, whereas the other two groups corresponded to germplasm from the highlands of Peru and Bolivia. In our germplasm set, we estimated linkage disequilibrium decay to be ≈ 118.5 kb. Marker-trait analyses revealed major and consistent effect associations for DTF on chromosomes 3A, 4B, 5B, 6A, 7A, 7B and 8B, with phenotypic variance explained (PVE) as high as 19.15%. Nine associations across eight chromosomes were also found for saponin content with 20% PVE by qSPN5A.1. More QTLs were identified for PL and TGW on multiple chromosomal locations. We identified putative candidate genes in the genomic regions associated with DTF and saponin content. The consistent and major-effect genomic associations can be used in fast-tracking quinoa breeding for wider adaptation across marginal environments.

Between plaza and peak: a montological perspective on verticality and urbanization in highland Peru

Under the influence of concentrated and extended urbanization, Andean cities and the different altitudinal zones of their “hinterlands” are experiencing profound changes in land cover — from the central plazas up to the highest peaks. The complex regional-geographic characteristics of these socioecological systems, such as the vertical complementarity of land use, require a montological perspective on verticality and urbanization: it transcends disciplinary approaches and can be crucial to properly interpret the trajectories of land cover change and formulate hypotheses for future practice-oriented research. Which trajectories of land cover change characterized altitudinal zones of Andean cities and their surroundings over the last three decades? Are there similarities that allow for the formulation of more general hypotheses? Using the Peruvian cases of Cusco and Huaraz, and combining a traditional altitudinal zonation model of land use in Peru with direct field observations and GIS-based analyses of remotely sensed data from 1991, 2001, 2011, and 2021, this study identifies the main trajectories of land cover change in the Quechua (>2300–3500 m), Suni (>3500–4000 m), and Puna (>4000–4800 m) regions — and finds insightful similarities between Cusco and Huaraz: (1) an impressive area of built-up land substitutes grassland in the Quechua, which, following regional altitudinal zonation models, is characterized by irrigated and rain-fed cropland; (2) an unexpected expansion of irrigated cropland takes place in the Suni, which, in theory, often lacks irrigation infrastructure and is mostly used for rain-fed tuber cultivation; and (3) a clear change from “other land” to grassland occurs in the Puna — where grassland is thought to predominate, anyway, since pre-Hispanic times. Hypothesizing that these changes reflect the interplay between speculative fallow, agricultural intensification, and ecological restoration, the results can be read as vertically complementary, local manifestations of concentrated and extended urbanization in a formerly peripheral mountain region of the Global South — and they underscore the need to overcome mental city-mountain dichotomies for a socially inclusive and ecologically balanced Andean development between plaza and peak.

Re-Imagining Land: Conceptualizing the changing form and content of the Andean Peasant Community in Peru

In the highland Peru, people experience environmental and socio-economic change as simultaneous and interlocking. In this article, we study elements of change in livelihood activities and assets by combining survey (n = 247) with extensive ethnographic data. We study how changes in livelihoods do not only a modify the composition of activities and assets and argue that the form and content of the comunidad campesina as an important socio-political actor is transforming in a context where the key factor in generating uncertainty is no longer access to land, but compounding socio-environmental uncertainties.

Simple solutions for improving thermal comfort in huts in the highlands of Peru

In the Peruvian mountains, hundreds of thousands of rural households living in poverty live in cold indoor environments, close to 0 °C. Indoor cold causes thousands of respiratory diseases and excess of winter deaths. In this study, we numerically calculated the impact of simple low-cost refurbishments on discomfort time during a year.Using EnergyPlus and Python, we modelled a typical one-room hut used as bedroom built with a metal-sheet roof, adobe walls, dirt floors, and high infiltration rates. Then, 9 individual solutions were studied, and their combination resulted in 215 different hut designs. The model was calibrated with field measurements to estimate the infiltration. All the numerical calculations included an uncertainty analysis based on Monte Carlo method, and a sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of reducing infiltration on discomfort time.The base case had a discomfort time of 44% of time. The calibration of infiltration resulted in a mean hourly air exchange rate equal to 29.1 h−1 (SD = 17.0 h−1). Five different designs formed the Pareto front that optimized discomfort time and costs. The solution with the lowest discomfort time during a year, 37% of the time, was adding insulation to the roof (U = 0.83 W/m2•K) and the door (U = 1.00 W/m2•K); and its cost was 286USD. In this solution, when infiltrations were reduced to 4.1 h−1 (SD = 4.1 h−1) discomfort time decreased until 16%.These results benefit those households that nowadays invest their limited resources to improve their living conditions but without technical guidance.

Diet During the Late Initial Period (1100–800 BC) in the Chavín Heartland: New Data from Canchas Uckro (North-Central Peru)

During the late Initial Period (c. 1100-800 BC), the Conchucos region of highland Peru witnessed the formation of the ceremonial and “proto-urban” center of Chavín de Huántar (c. 1000-500/400 BC). An important question regarding Chavín de Huántar centers on the nature of its subsistence economy during the time when it was first founded. In this paper, we present new results from zooarchaeological, starch granule, and stable isotope (δ13C and δ15N) analyses to reconstruct diet from Canchas Uckro, a settlement located in Chavín de Huántar's heartland region. Founded c. 1100 BC and abandoned just after 800 BC, Canchas Uckro provides insight into socioeconomic processes during the early phases of Chavín de Huántar. Extant faunal remains suggest deer comprised an important component of the diet, while camelids constitute a minor proportion of the assemblage. Starch granules recovered from the pottery indicate that domesticated cultigens (maize, potato, and manioc) were obtained from different highland production zones. δ13C and δ15N analysis of a sample of human skeletal remains, coupled with Stable Isotope Analysis in R (SIAR) mixing models, demonstrate that C3plants constitute most of the diet, while maize was not intensively consumed. δ13C and δ15N further indicate that deer made up 25-50% of the diet. The results of this study add to a gro wing corpus of data on subsistence practices in the north-central and northern highlands of Peru prior to the widespread adoption of domesticated camelids.

Genomic selection improves genetic gain for fiber traits in a breeding program for alpacas

The implementation of genetic improvement programs including genomic information leads to higher genetic and economic gains in animal production. So far, genomic selection in alpacas is still at an early stage and its response for fiber quality traits has not been studied. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the genetic gains for fiber diameter (FD) and percentage of medullation (PM) using BLUP (Best Linear Unbiased Prediction) and ssGBLUP (single-step Genomic BLUP) under five selection index scenarios. The ZPLAN+ software was used to simulate for FD and PM annual genetic gain and standardized genetic gain, and also a total standardized genetic gain for a selection index. Input parameters were taken from field data of the Pacomarca Scientific Station in the Highlands of Peru. The respective weights given for FD and PM in the selection indexes were as follows: -1 and 0 (Scenario 1); -0.75 and -0.25 (Scenario 2); -0.5 and -0.5 (Scenario 3); -0.25 and -0.75 (Scenario 4); and 0 and -1 (Scenario 5). Total standardized genetic gain from the alpaca breeding program based on ssGBLUP in scenario 2 was higher compared to other scenarios. In all scenarios the genetic gain using ssGBLUP were higher than those from BLUP. Therefore, the use of genomic breeding values could have a favorable impact on genetic gains for FD and PM in alpacas.

Embedded religiousness and the Kotosh religious tradition in highland Peru: the site of La Seductora

Religion played a key role in the social organisation and political authority of early Andean societies. Excavations at La Seductora in Peru have identified a circular structure with a central hearth and an underground ventilation shaft. The authors argue that the structure belongs to the Kotosh religious tradition, which dominated the central Andes during the Late Archaic and Formative periods (2800–550 BC). Probably representing a small shrine for use by local families, the authors situate La Seductora within the context of power and religiosity in Andean society, providing a model of relevance to similar contexts elsewhere in the world.

Influence of carbofuran on the concentration of primary soil macronutrients in potato growing areas in the Peruvian highlands

Potatoes have a high production demand in the world, but they are constantly under threat from germination to harvest due to pest infestation; for control, insecticides are used, which are highly polluting chemicals, systemic insecticides of the carbamate group due to their mode of action, with contact activity against different pests. This research sought to evaluate the influence of carbofuran on soil macronutrients in the District of Chongos Bajo, in the highlands of Peru. Through the experimental study method, with a quantitative research approach in a deductive process. We worked with a representative area of 10 m2 with 6 analyses of soil samples every 15 days in a period of 3 months. The results showed a loss value of 7.85% of total nitrogen, 14.05% of available phosphorus and 10% of available potassium in the period of 90 days, where there was a variation in the pH in water with a tendency of acidity, and a decrease in organic matter with a loss value of 6.93%. It was possible to demonstrate that the toxicity of the insecticide carbofuran had an influence on the decrease in the concentration of the main macronutrients and on the physical and chemical properties of the soil.

Safeguarding the land to secure food in the highlands of Peru: The case of Andean peasant producers

Local or traditional agri-food systems in the Andes depend on community land use planning to maintain the genetic pool of crops and landraces in the face of disease, disasters, and climate change. These systems are managed integrally and on the basis of traditional knowledge around soil conservation, water management and maintaining biodiversity. At the same time, agri-food system research, policy and programming exhibit a limited understanding of local or traditional systems planning and community and cultural contexts. In policy and programming, the treatment of communities as homogenous groups overlooks heterogeneity in local identities, which is reflected for example in different access and use of traditional knowledge among men and women and forms of community organization and customs. The purpose of this article is to respond to this gap by shedding light on the intersecting identities of Andean farmers–peasant women and men–that contribute to the sustainability and resilience of local agri-food systems. Our focus is on intersecting identities and planning processes in particular. We detail the nature and cultural components that make up local agri-food systems in the Andean region and identify policy gaps around identities. To do this, we draw on intersectional feminist thinking, socio-ecological systems and resilience thinking to apply an intersectional lens to the study of planning processes in several Andean communities. Findings identify contributions around soil conservation, biodiversity upkeep, water management, and communal or cultural practices that are shaped by peasant's intersecting identities and their interactions within social-ecological systems. Findings illustrate the importance of multiple social locations, relations, and structures of power, including but not limited to gender, but other categories such as age and ethnicity for the delivery of equitable resilience. We formulate some initial recommendations so that national approaches and interventions better reflect the diversity of Andean people's identities and the way these affect relationships with socio-ecological systems in national and public planning. In particular, we suggest there may be value in exploring further the potential of rights-based approaches for enhancing equitable resilience in Andean agri-food systems. This article should be of interest to academics and practitioners in planning working around local or traditional food systems.

Acequias: Trust and Hydrosocial Territory

Acequias:Trust and Hydrosocial Territory Sylvia Rodríguez (bio) This essay originally appeared in Sustainability and Water Management in the Maya World and Beyond, edited by Jean T. Larmon, Lisa J. Lucero, and Fred Valdez Jr. Louisville: University Press of Colorado, pp. 200–227, 2022. It is republished here with permission. Acequias And Moral Economy New Mexico's acequias belong to a family of hand-dug, gravity-flow, small-scale, farmer-managed irrigation systems found all over the world. Some are historically related, but others are not. Despite their differences in terms of environment, geography, climate, regional and national setting, language, and culture, these systems all seem to operate in strikingly similar ways. This alignment has led one anthropologist to propose that their common operating principles are the result of a rare process of convergent evolution, whereby the same form emerges independently in different places and times, because it is highly adaptive (Trawick, Reig, and Salvador 2014). Such systems—which are found, for example, in the Andes, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, China, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Africa, and Bali—have proven to be sustainable and resilient within their respective ecological settings, whether arid or humid. Nevertheless, many have disappeared under the onslaught of modernization, while those that still exist struggle to survive in the face of myriad adverse political, economic, social, demographic, environmental, and climatic forces. This chapter examines the dynamic interface between acequia governance and the broader hydrosocial regime and territory in which it is embedded. My discussion explores the question of acequia sustainability [End Page 582] in light of ethnographic, historical-, comparative-, political-, and ecological systems–modeling perspectives. This analysis moves from microsocial to macrosocial levels and back again, focusing on how the tension between local and regional water politics has evolved through time. Acequia Agriculture And Governance The term "acequia" refers to both the irrigation canal and the association of parciantes who own and operate it. The association consists of farmer-rancher parciantes, or water right and landowners who share a common presa (stream diversion) into a hand-dug acequia madre ("mother ditch") from which linderos, venitas, sangrías (laterals) convey water to individual properties. Their basic canal structure and operating principles derive from Islamic-Iberian rules, technology, and practices introduced to the semiarid upper Rio Grande valley by Spanish colonial settlers who occupied mercedes reales, or grants of land awarded by the Spanish Crown, starting in the late sixteenth century. Acequia agriculture extended riparian habitats, transformed regional ecology, and created the northern New Mexican landscape seen today. Acequia irrigation was integral to the agropastoral economy that persisted into the twentieth century and survives today in reduced and modified form among rural and semiurban Nuevomexicanos. Even though few parciantes today subsist entirely or even primarily on agriculture, acequias remain the organizational backbone of many rural Nuevomexicano communities. The moral economy model of community irrigation management posits a system of principles and values that supports and guides cooperative, independent economic practice. Drawing on ethnographic research in highland Peru and Valencia, Spain, understood in light of Elinor Ostrom's work (1990), Trawick identifies nine operating principles common to all small-scale, farmer-operated irrigation systems: autonomy, alternation or turn taking, contiguity in distribution, uniformity, proportionality, transparency, boundary maintenance, direct feedback, and graduated sanctions (Trawick 2003; Trawick, Reig, and Salvador 2014, 88). Like their Islamic-Iberian forebears and modern cognates in Valencia, New Mexico's acequia irrigation systems exhibit these attributes. [End Page 583] Parciantes Parciantes are obligated to pay dues, contribute labor to the cleaning and maintenance of acequia infrastructure, observe the customs of water sharing, and annually elect a mayordomo (ditch boss) and three commissioners who oversee ditch management and governance. Labor contribution and water allocation are proportional to the amount of acreage a parciante irrigates. The mayordomo allocates water proportionally to parciantes in good standing on the basis of equity and need, supervises communal labor on the ditch, and resolves disputes over water. Commissioners include a secretary, treasurer, and president. Acequia communities define themselves as place-based, territorial, and linked through time by kinship, spatial contiguity, and a continuous round of sacred and secular calendric and life-cycle rituals. Today...

The Politics of Localizing Human Rights: Chinese Policies and Corporate Practices in Latin America

AbstractThe ‘Going Out’ strategy that China began in 1999 escalated to a global level with the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ in 2013. However, the lack of a clear international framework for corporate accountability accentuates the risks of human rights’ affectation by Chinese corporations, considering their controversial performance in Latin America. This article engages with the scholarly framework of international norm localization to analyze the enactment of Chinese business and human rights standards and their concrete application. This assessment relies on an extensive review of academic and policy research and the analysis of social conflicts around one of the largest copper mines in the region, Las Bambas, located in the highlands of Peru. The case shows that the main problem is not the lack of incorporation of business and human rights standards into national laws and the guidelines of companies’ home regulators, but the different ways they are interpreted by social actors on the ground. Local communities are not passive receptors of those norms but norm makers who appropriate them and provide new meanings in line with their self-determination. Chinese and national authorities and firms, therefore, need to engage with those norms from the perspective of local people.

Toxic mobilization: mining, pollution and power in the highlands of Peru

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how the toxic consequences of extractive industries like mining have reconfigured both local topographies and introduced new structures and meanings regarding environmental justice and mobilization for communities living in polluted areas. Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of the case of Espinar in Peru, the paper explains how the company and the government’s management of uncertainty regarding land and water pollution have transformed the meaning of mobilization for communities and their capacities for cleaning or at least improving their environment. I argue that local and global connections and transnational support still open opportunities for meaningful local mobilization despite uncertainty and ambiguity in managing environmental pollution, which weakens social cohesion and fragments the positions of inhabitants concerning collective and political action. However, communities can unwillingly embrace toxic conflicts: low intense, fragmented, but persistent forms of mobilization to bargain for some form of partial compensation from the company and the state. This form of conflict reinforces the internal fragmentation of the overall community and runs against environmental justice aspirations.

Community-oriented engineering co-design: case studies from the Peruvian Highlands

The goal of an engineer’s career is solving real problems for social and ecological betterment. At the University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) in Lima, Peru, this vision is promoted from the earliest stages of a student’s engineering career to enable them to embrace their creativity while developing meaningful solutions for ecosystems in need. In this article, an educational methodology is presented that uses a project-based collaborative learning approach with the aim of evaluating, selecting and developing community-oriented engineering solutions in the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). Communication strategies and evaluation of projects based on co-design methods implemented among engineering students and isolated rural communities in the highlands of Peru are discussed. In conclusion, the process to select a community is analyzed and the most important criteria are determined. In addition, we highlight the importance of defining elements to understand the context (community and place) and to establish future objectives (group and projects) during the exploration period that will help facilitate the decision to select a community.

Translating international health policies into lived realities: Maternal health, social support programs, and obstetric violence in highland Peru

This article examines women's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in highland Peru and illuminates how international maternal health policies can perpetuate and reinforce social inequalities through what is now increasingly termed obstetric violence, including coercion, neglect, and physical and verbal abuse. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with mothers, obstetricians, midwives, and social workers and community-based, participatory action research workshops. In recounting their experiences, women continually referenced confusion around medical interventions, issues of coercion, neglect, abuse, and punishment, and structural obligations to utilize biomedical services. Analyzing these experiences through the lens of obstetric violence allows for a contextualization of individual women's experiences of violence in the healthcare setting within the broader context of everyday assaults on economically disenfranchised, indigenous women's personhood. Although women have increasing access to biomedical care as a result of international maternal health policies, this research demonstrates that how this care is delivered also deserves scrutiny.

Mean Platelet Volume as a Predictor of COVID-19 Severity: A Prospective Cohort Study in the Highlands of Peru.

Introduction: Although 80% of symptomatic individuals with COVID-19 develop mild forms, it is the severe (15%) and critical (5%) forms that have the greatest impact in the hospital setting. Recognizing markers that can predict severe forms is essential, especially in high-altitude populations. Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study at 3200 masl (meters above sea level) in a city in Peru to determine if MPV (mean platelet volume) level is a predictor of COVID-19 severity. Patients with mild/moderate disease were enrolled and followed for 21 days or until the development of severe disease (primary outcome). A bivariate analysis was used to identify variables associated with severe disease. A ROC analysis determined the best MPV (mean platelet count) cut-off to predict COVID-19 severity, and then, a multiple regression analysis was performed. Results: 64 patients were enrolled. The median age was 48.5 years (IQT 39–64.5) and the proportion of women was 51.6%, the most frequent symptoms were chest pain (73%), fever (71%), and dyspnea (67%). The median time to develop a severe form from the onset of symptoms was 11 days (IQT 10.5–13). The most common radiographic phase on CT scan (computed tomography) was progressive (60.38%). We observed that an MPV of more than 10.15 fL in the first week of disease predicted severity regardless of age and sex at high altitudes. Conclusions: MPV in the first week of the disease may predict severity in patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at high altitudes; however, we need prospective studies with a larger population and at a different altitude, levels to confirm these findings.

Exploring the Role of Ecolinguistics in the Highlands of Peru: A study on the relationship between the Quechua language and local agrobiodiversity

Exploring the Role of Ecolinguistics in the Highlands of Peru: A study on the relationship between the Quechua language and local agrobiodiversity

Architectural typology of rural housing in Jaen, Peru

Jaén is one of the most important cities in the northern highlands of Peru due to its strategic location, commerce, and agricultural activities. Jaén has more than 185 thousand inhabitants, of which 48% live in rural areas, representing approximately 31 thousand rural housing. This research aims to determine the types of rural housing in Jaén, showing the possible variations and architectural manifestations due to the territorial and cultural characteristics. A field observation sheet has been used to study the rural dwellings of populated centres previously classified by altitudinal regions. The results show six architectural types of rural housing classified into two groups: “rural-residential housing” and “rural-agricultural housing”. These architectural types are generally located near water sources, within agricultural plots, and on hillsides. The architectural program is characterised by agricultural activity and family composition, which has grown over time. The most commonly used construction systems are “pirca” and “quincha”, using natural materials such as “ichu” and adobe. There is also evidence of cultural traditions rooted in the construction, such as “cambio de fuerzas”, “paracaico”, and “minga”. Therefore, the relevance of Jaén’s rural housing is its geographical reading of the territory through the architectural and cultural legacy of these buildings.