In July, Sacha Warmi joined the “Traditional Foodways Program” with People and Plants International (https://www.peopleandplants.org/ecuador) to implement it in Ecuador with the Association of Indigenous Communities of Arajuno (ACIA) and the community of Tsatsapi, one of the 6 communities of the Ancestral Kichwa Comune of Canelos.
The Foodways Program supports traditional food systems in their entirety, i.e. the sustainable collection, management, cultivation, cultivation, processing and preparation of a wide range and staggering number of food species. However, more than specific foods, it is these complex and diverse food systems that are most threatened today, as they rely on threatened traditions and biologically diverse environments.
Coordinated by Judith Huatatoca, the leader of the Women’program of ACIA, representatives of the 25 communities have prepared a 1 hectare swidden garden that will be planted on August 19-20th with a variety of food, fruit and medicinal plants. The garden will serve as a demonstrative model to encourage the recovery of seeds, to teach young students from Arajuno schools and promote the improvement of food security. Similarly, the Tsatsapi community group also prepared a 1 ha. swidden garden to work with the same objectives.
Three workshops will be held over the next 9 months to build the model farm and address many related issues to reaffirm the importance of traditional knowledge systems and culture in general. Videos and educational materials will be edited and printed to support the diffusion and promotion of the project among the schools in Arajuno region and other indigenous organizations in the Kichwa territory of Pastaza.
