COUNTRY NOTES: Machu Picchu, Maize and the Advantage of Backwardness

By Nicholas Asheshov – Special for the Machu Picchu Centennial – Machu Picchu and the Inca Empire were the creation of an import from Central America, maize, and a dramatic climate shift that turned the Andean highlands from inhospitable wet-and-cold to pleasant, as it is today, dry-and-warm. For more than half a millenium before this [...]

City of Juliaca launches quinoa consumption campaign to tackle malnutrition

The highland city of Juliaca and local schools launched a campaign this week, aimed to increase children’s consumption of quinoa – a grain-like seed crop – in a concerted effort to tackle malnutrition in the region. “Nowadays we export quinoa to North America, Japan, Germany, while we are negligent about domestic nutrition,” said the Director [...]

Climate Change: hail and freezing temperatures forecast for Puno and southern highlands

Climate change continues to wreck havoc in Peru’s southern altiplano, where the arrival of freezing temperatures since March — almost three months earlier than usual — have killed more than a dozen people.