Rooted in Resistance - the Agrobiodiversity of Bitter Potatoes
- natallcan
- Feb 19
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 23
as part of my intervention in the 2025 Annual Darwin Debate - How would Darwin do fieldwork today?
What shapes our hypotheses?
As a researcher, I am curious about what shapes our research questions. Which is tied to the question of why we do science.
From my perspective, our hypotheses are shaped by our context—what we observe in the world, what phenomena fascinate us, what has been discovered about it, and how we interpret it.
As a Quechua researcher born in the Amazon, I know this context naturally extends to the Andes and Amazon regions. Their nature, cultures, and cosmovisions are deeply familiar to me.
However, these regions have been exploited for centuries, damaging their complex ecosystems and the people who depend on them. For example, you can watch Wiñaypacha, the first movie in Aymara, which portrays the struggles of an elderly couple in the Altiplano (Titicaca lake basin) facing extended periods of drought.
In response, we envision solutions—not only from researchers but also from communities that implement multidimensional approaches. This stands in contrast to researchers who apply Western science epistemologies, which often focus on just one if not a few dimensions.
We have much to learn from them.
Our Sacred Kuka leaf, Bolivia. 2. Nanay river meeting Amazon river, Iquitos, Peru. PC: N. Allasi Canales.
What are our morals, ethics and legislation of the fieldwork?
When our research questions and solutions lead us to fieldwork, we must carefully consider our morals, ethics, and the relevant legislation.
Regarding morals and ethics, Allin kawsay stands as a fundamental principle for Andean peoples. Through the lens of agroecology and food sovereignty, Allin kawsay encompasses two key aspects:
Adequate cultural skills, technology, and resources that support food supply and consumption.
Social relations within and among families and communities enable learning, knowledge sharing, work, and the enjoyment of a healthy life.
During my fieldwork, I had the privilege of interviewing Andean potato farmers. I introduced myself, explained my motivations, and shared the project's aims—all in both Quechua and Spanish. I also got help from Aymara colleagues. Their enthusiasm about the potential results created a sense of accountability, driving me to ensure that our outputs would be both informative and relevant to the community.
In Martín Chacolla Vargas' chakra in Cruz Pata, Bolivia. 2. With Jerónimo Huanca Ampuero, Mario Infanzón Huaquisto and Máximo Colquehuanca Hampiri in Cuyocuyo, Peru. PC: N. Allasi Canales.
Understanding peoples’ cosmovisions
Cosmovision is how we collectively and personally understand the physical and spiritual world.
In the Andean cosmovision, there is no concept of 'wild'—all beings are taken care of.
In the same way we tend potatoes, the tend us.
In Bolivia, I met Doña Vitalia and her daughter. They welcomed us to interview them and sample from their plot. They also shared their bitter potato-based snack, insisting we eat it there because she "didn't want to see it thrown away on the road." After a long day in the field, we gladly did so.
In Peru's Potato Park, Don Mariano showed me the puma paw-shaped potato—a revered household item I had previously only encountered in articles and books.
With Doña Vitalia Colque Jorge and her daughter in Bolivia. 2. Puma paw-shaped potato shown by Mariano Sutta Apocusi in Potato Park, Peru. PC: N. Allasi Canales.
Our problem & my motivation
Food systems and crop diversity have diminished and face increasing risk due to planetary dysregulation. Highland native farmers are particularly vulnerable, as their survival relies on their deep interconnection with crops and other living beings.
My motivation stems from how Indigenous Peoples maintain their deep kinship with Nature through their languages, knowledge, and land practices—thriving despite crises like colonization, genocide, and wars. Thus, I'm inspired to help empower small-holder families in low-income regions to achieve food sovereignty.
Local crops
For this, I focus on local crops—also referred to as orphan, minor, or neglected crops. Though many of us reject those terms, as these crops are important and staple for the people that cultivate them.
Research heavily favours global crops over local ones, creating a significant imbalance in our understanding.
In our piece, we address this disparity by proposing the integration of traditional knowledge—particularly ethnobotany and peoples’ own oral histories—alongside humanities and natural sciences to better understand evolutionary processes like crop cp-adaptation in polycultures, non-canonical domestication, and selection under cultural preferences.
These local crops retain the most intact traditional wisdom, meaning research on them can directly support and benefit their traditional custodians.
Chuñu, T’unta & Moraya
As a Peruvian, I'm passionate about potatoes. My research focuses on bitter potatoes, which are sister species to the common potato (Solanum tubersoum) consumed worldwide. These bitter potatoes get their name from their high glycoalkaloid content—compounds that serve as the plant's natural defence against herbivores and provide medicinal properties. Due to these compounds, most bitter potatoes cannot be eaten directly. To make them edible, Andean Indigenous peoples developed an ingenious method of traditionally freeze-drying the potatoes at high altitudes (4000 masl) and low temperatures (~-5°C). This process removes most of the glycoalkaloids. In their freeze-dried form, these potatoes can last for many years, serving as an insurance crop during times of crop failure. The resulting products—known as chuñu, t'unta, and moraya in Quechua and Aymara—provide up to 70% of the caloric intake for Andean Altiplano peoples living above 3500 masl.
Specimens
In my project, I make use of two sets of specimens.
Historical specimens provide valuable research material because they:
Capture reliable snapshots of past ecologies and biodiversity
Contains detailed metadata from previous collection efforts
Represent populations with likely less hybridization than present-day samples
Allow for analysis of preserved DNA and alkaloids
Contemporary specimens provide insights into:
Compare through history and predict the biology of bitter potatoes
Revisit collection sites of historical specimens during the same seasonal periods
Implement our informed strategy by targeting locations with extreme climatic conditions
Solanum curtilobum specimen housed at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew 2. Bitter Potato specimen is now housed at the Herbarium of the Natural History Museum of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima. PC: N. Allasi Canales.
Unearthing Colonial Pasts and Indigenous Futures through Potato Collections
Working with my colleague Helen-Anne Curry, we compared both sets of collections by examining the research contexts that made them possible. The historical collection, known as the British Empire Potato Collecting Expedition, was led by E. K. Balls in 1938-39. This expedition pursued an extractivist imperial agenda, aiming to improve British potatoes by studying the diverse native potato varieties throughout the Americas (from Mexico to Argentina). While the early documents mentioned local knowledge, the live collections and breeding programs failed to maintain connections with South American and Indigenous knowledge systems. Credit for expertise was given primarily to scholars, overlooking local contributors.
In contrast, the Bitter Potato expedition in 2024 in the Peruvian and Bolivian Altiplano centres on community concerns, repurposing the historical specimens through re-indigenization to envision Indigenous futures. This approach honours and learns from Indigenous farmers—their cosmovision, ecological knowledge, and agricultural practices. Importantly, in this project, Indigenous farmers are recognized by name.
J. Hawkes archives at RBG Kew Library and Archives. Photo by HA Curry 2. Bitter Potato 2024 expedition with Simón Cocarico Yana and Ricardo Poma O. Phoro by S. Cocarico Yana.
Suitability of Bitter Potato Cultivation and Andean Farmers’ Perspectives Amid Climate Crisis
Since I had the opportunity to conduct fieldwork, I wanted to make the most of it. We interviewed Indigenous farmers to learn about their agricultural practices, kinship with potatoes, and concerns.
Andean farmers’ perspectives
We learned about Andean farmers' Agricultural practices for Bitter Potatoes, including their locally important varieties and the use of wanu as fertilizer. Regarding the context that allows the production of knowledge, we discovered that Bitter Potatoes are vital for both sustenance and cultural identity. When discussing changes, farmers expressed primary concerns about frost and drought, which are occurring more frequently than before—a clear indication of climate change.
To address these concerns, we used ecological niche modelling to predict changes in bitter potato distribution from the present day to the future (2041-2070). This analysis helped us identify which altitudes will be most suitable for Bitter Potatoes in the future. These findings can help us identify vulnerable areas and develop guidelines for in situ conservation. I hope the manuscript to be out soon.
Doña Modesta Huamán in Lircay, Peru 2. Potato Museum at Potato Park, Calca Peru. PC: N. Allasi Canales.
Sharing benefits & knowledge
What makes access and benefit sharing achievable? Ibarra et al's transdisciplinary framework on socio-ecological resilience building offers an excellent approach.
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities should have the agency to propose their own hypotheses, conduct data collection and analysis, solve problems, and disseminate and apply solutions while monitoring the outputs.
Some questions here contemplate for the debate
Should every organism in the world be researched?
How would that impact organisms, their habitat and associated organisms, under capitalism?
How would the local society benefit from it?
Should all biological data be open and free? could this arise to biopiracy cases?
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