ABSTRACT
Peasants or campesinos1 living in the Central Andes of South America are the traditional custodians of a vast genetic pool of Andean crops and tubers. To date, an estimated 4,000 varieties of native potatoes have been identified. Traditional Andean farming systems depend intrinsically on women’s emic (insider) knowledge to maintain such vast biodiversity (Tapia 1997; Brush 2004). Women have preserved the genetic biodiversity of the potato despite serious adversities such as constant climate stress and food scarcity (de Haan 2009). Such adaptation and resilience are the foundation of peasant communities in the Andes.
