Peruvian native potatoes nominated for UN award

The T’ikapapa initiative links small-scale Andean farmers with new urban markets.

The United Nations has nominated the T’ikapapa initiative, which markets specially selected and packed native Peruvian potatoes under the T’ikapapa trademark, as one of the ten finalists for the Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development (Seed) Awards 2007 from 230 proposals from 70 countries.

The five awards will be made during a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in May 2007 in New York.

T’ikapapa is one of several potato products brought to market in recent years, through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)-funded project coordinated by the International Potato Center (CIP)  to revalue the Peruvian native potato and position it in the national and international market.

Specialists of Papa Andina (a CIP Partnership Program) and its INCOPA project (Innovation and Competitiveness of the Peruvian Potato), which promoted the T’ikapapa concept, commented in Lima that this is recognition of the enormous biodiversity contained in the Peruvian native potato, which the entrepreneurs of T’ikapapa knew how to assess, and the contribution of the Andean farmers who have developed and conserved the varieties over the centuries.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program, made the announcement 25 January during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Seed Awards are an incentive for local entrepreneurs, communities, companies and others to join in partnerships to promote economic growth, social development and environmental protection around the world.

The T’ikapapa initiative was selected because it represents a new way to link small-scale Andean farmers with new urban markets, helps to improve local farmers’ livelihoods and utilizes environmentally friendly technologies to conserve local biodiversity. The method helps public and private groups form partnerships at all the stages of the market chain, from cultivation and production to packaging and marketing, from the farmer to the consumer.

The finalists proposed in the Davos Forum included projects with very different approaches, from the promotion of traditional medicine and ecotourism, to the production of alternative fuels. Partners in the Awards include the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and South Africa, as well and private sector partners.

For more information on the Seed Awards see: www.seedinit.org
For more information about T’ikapapa and the INCOPA project contact:
Miguel Ordinola (cip-incopa@cgiar.org)
General Coordinator, INCOPA Project
(http://papandina.cip.cgiar.org/index.php?id=76)
International Potato Center (www.cipotato.org)
Phone: 3496017 ext. 3014