"One of the goals of CIP’s Andean root and tuber program is to ensure the long-term survival of crops that have traditionally played little or no role in regional and national markets."

A decade ago, maca was a little-known root grown by some of Peru’s poorest and most isolated subsistence farmers. Today it is one of the country’s most promising agricultural exports.

Until recently, ulluco was found only in markets a few months each year. Now the colorful tuber can be found virtually year-round in the most fashionable supermarkets in Lima.

Crispy, fructan-rich yacón used to be a sweet secret among Andean highlanders. Today that secret is being shared with dieters and diabetics as far away as Brazil and Japan.

These are just some of the Andean root and tuber crops, studied and conserved by CIP and its partners, that have recently begun to find their way out of tiny backyard plots and into regional, national, and international markets.

The Maca Craze
Cultivated above 4,000 meters of elevation in a small area in central Peru, maca has been used for centuries to stimulate human and animal fertility, which is naturally reduced by high altitudes. The few scientific tests performed on maca before the mid-1990s seemed to bear out this traditional knowledge—a point that was not lost on the market-wise Peruvian pharmaceutical company Quimica Suiza.

Working closely with CIP, Quimica Suiza has invested more than $1 million in maca research and product development since 1994. Company officials say they have found that maca not only improves male and female fertility, but also increases energy and relieves stress. In 1998, on the strength of these claims, Quimica Suiza exported about $80,000 worth of maca tablets to Japan, Europe, and the United States. The company is hoping to increase foreign sales to $1 million in 1999.

As interest in the root has grown, a number of other entrepreneurs have jumped on the bandwagon, quickly conceiving, manufacturing, and marketing maca-based products ranging from liquors and candies to flours and medicinal capsules. The sudden rise in demand for the crop has transformed the economy around Peru’s Lake Junin. The land area planted in maca grew from just 200 hectares in 1995 to about 1,500 by the end of 1998, and the Agriculture Ministry hopes to see that figure rise to nearly 3,000 in 1999.

Other Promising Products
CIP has played an important role in the growth in the ulluco market in Peru, having helped local producers build and operate a modern storage facility near Huancayo. Using technology first developed for potatoes, the facility allows producers to sell their product in Lima during the summer months, when supplies are lower and prices are high.

Off-season ulluco may soon help boost incomes in Bolivia as well. A CIP collaboration with researchers at San Simón University in Cochabamba has resulted in production, on a pilot scale, of attractively-packaged ulluco flakes. The new product should give consumers access to this nutritious food throughout the year while helping stabilize prices for farmers.

CIP scientists, working with collaborators at International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and other institutions, are currently testing the market viability of a number of cottage industry products made from Andean roots and tubers in several locations in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Particularly promising is "rallado," a traditional sweet made from arracacha and sugarcane syrup and consumed during fiestas. Other products that have been studied or tested for their commercial potential include oca jam, oca-based baby food, mashua-based pesticides, and yacón pickles, teas, chips, and ice cream (see box).

The Biodiversity Question
One of the goals of CIP’s Andean root and tuber program is to ensure the long-term survival of crops that have traditionally played little or no role in regional and national markets. Commercialization is often touted as the answer to the threat against biodiversity—the idea being that if farmers cannot sell their crops, they will eventually be forced to stop growing them. Yet the effects of commercialization on biodiversity are not always positive. This is most clearly seen in major commodities such as maize, wheat, and potatoes, in which market demands dictate that just a few select varieties dominate.

The same could happen with the lesser-known roots and tubers. If industrial baby food processors require only one variety of oca, for instance, it is possible that market-oriented farmers who have always grown oca will begin to plant only that commercially desirable variety. This is potentially true for most other traditional Andean crops, whose different varieties often display markedly different characteristics.

So far, however, studies conducted by CIP and its partners indicate that the loss of traditional Andean crop varieties has been minimal despite the trend toward increased commercialization. This is in part because non-commercial varieties are exchanged and transported outside of their "micro-centers of origin" much more frequently and universally than researchers had previously thought. Thus the market-induced disappearance of a variety from one farm or village generally does not mean that the variety is extinct.

This is reinforced by the conservationist traditions of Andean farming. Economic studies show that few small-scale Andean farmers are strictly commercial growers. Rather, most maintain a number of preferred traditional crops and varieties for family or ritual use, as well as for genetic insurance against drought or other stresses. Yet this could change as market demands reach more remote areas. So while CIP’s Andean roots and tubers program promotes production and commercialization options that increase the incomes of small-scale growers, one of its ongoing responsibilities is to monitor the impact of commercial pressure on these farmers, and on the genetic wealth they nurture and protect.