During the World Food Prize in Des Moines, a panel discussion was held to discuss the Andes mountain region in Peru. This area is responsible for supplying water to the Amazon river basin and has seen changes in agriculture and environment which the International Potato Center (CIP) attributes to climate changes.
Ginya Truitt Nakata is the director of Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Potato Center (CIP). She talks about why this region is so vital for research.
Just looking at the challenges the potato farmers in Peru are facing, you can see the farmers are having to move their plantings further up the mountain slopes to find the ideal conditions they once had at lower elevations.
Truitt Nakata says the results of growing further up the mountains have caused the soil which has sequestered carbon for millennia to release that carbon into the atmosphere.
In our next segment, we will discuss the goals of the research being conducted in the Andes region.
