Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)

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Andean Agriculture

©Photo courtesy of GIAHS Peru - Andean Agriculture

Project's full title Andean Agriculture, Peru
Introduction Andean agriculture has adaptated to the environment for more than 5,000 years. Indigenous agricultural knowledge includes terraces, ridges fields, local irrigation systems, tools and crops/livestock spread at different altitudes. Millennia of experience and selection have led to the domestication of a number of endemic species such as potatoes and quinoa.
Country Peru
Start date 2011
Status Designated
Related publications
01/2011

The 350 kilometre transect of the GIAHS pilot site captures such environmental verticality and heterogeneity as it extends from the southern area of the Peruvian Andes and includes the environment around the sacred city of the Incas, Machu Picchu, (1 900 m), including the whole Vilcanota river watershed up to the divortium aquarium in the Raya (4 300 m), crossing to the northern part of the peruvian high plateau to reach Lake Titicaca (3 800 m).

Tags Indigenous Peoples IntegratedAgriculturalSystem Rangelands and Pastoralism TraditionalKnowledge TraditionalSystem Water managment