Food for life: helping Andean farmers pioneer regenerative agriculture and food to improve health, social equity and restore ecosystems

 

Industrial technology, market-oriented development and the modernization of agrifood in Ecuador has distanced Andean farmers from broader society and from their environments. This undermines social relations and the life-sustaining functionality of highland ecosystems. The resulting socio-biological collapse puts people’s health, well-being, and future into question.

This project helps resource-poor Andean farmers transition to healthier, more productive regenerative food systems. It supports a pioneering group of women and youth from agroecology movements to strengthen food systems using insights into soil microbiology and the biome. It will enable them to put neglected or underused elements to work for greater food security, the economy and climate change mitigation. Intimate ties with the country’s Indigenous organizations and agrifood movements will help participants continually inform advocacy and policy interventions in their communities, social networks and government.

This project will help Andean people test and open up pathways for rehabilitating ecologies and restoring ecosystems. This includes enhancing food security among highly vulnerable populations by combating land degradation and improving farm productivity. It also involves adaptation to climate variability by strengthening the biological functioning of soils and climate change mitigation through on-farm carbon accrual.