Up in the Altiplan at 4000 meters there is not much in the way of natural fuel. This is because there are relatively few trees. The only sources of fuel are little gas cylinders. However, if you are a farmer that practices mixed agriculture then a free source of fuel is collecting dry cow dung of the fields and burning that. This is exactly what the farmers do to heat their stoves for cooking! Here is a video inside Gladys' kitchen showing us exactly that.      Your browser does not support our video.

Above is an image of a ‘ventiladore’- literally wind machines- that get rid of dust and will also allow to select for size of grain. The smallest ones can then be kept back for animals or personal consumption, whereas regular sized and up can be sold to the coop for processing.  The first step is to harvest the Quinoa plants with a sickle, then dry them out on its stem. Once the crop has been hand harvested and threshed, they can put through this machine to find the right sized quinoa for selling.  Previously, this job had to be done by hand and...

The strange decline of huge swathes of the bee population in Europe can be put down to the excessive use of pesticides, that are used across the vast majority of European agricultural land. Neonicotinoids, that kill insects via their effect on the central nervous system, are a particular worry. Although they do not typically kill bees outright, they impair the bee’s navigational senses. As such the bees never make it back to their hives and die. For the future of our ecodiversity such practices are quite clearly not sustainable. An obvious answer to this issue would be an outright ban...

After a long process Peru has finally banned GMOs (genetically modified crops) for at least ten years. Quechua farmers across Peru, like the farmers of Coopain that grow Quinola Mothergrain, have been demonstrating for years to get GMOs banned. As they farm small parcels of land there is a natural resistance to disease, especially as they continue to use a wide variety   of food crop strains. Unlike rice where maybe 5 varieties represent the bulk of the global rice crop, in Peru there are literally thousands of quinoa varieties. All have different benefits, whether it be to altitude, lack of...