In Chacore, about 200 kilometers east of Asunción, Paraguay’s capital, Ceferina Guerrero, 68, walks by shelves of carefully-labelled plastic bottles and metal drums. Each contains a native seed variety essential to the diets of rural communities.

Their labels list seed names in Guarani, an indigenous language and Paraguay’s second official language, as well as in Spanish. Guerrero introduces them warmly, as a mother would do with her children: this one is a bean, this one is peanut, and this is corn.

Known as Ña Cefe in her community, Guerrero says her surname (which means ‘warrior’ in Spanish) fits her like a glove. She is one of the founders of the Coordination of Rural and Indigenous Women in Paraguay (Conamuri)