Amazon Ancestral Sustainable Food System

1. The Ingas are an ethnic group originating in the Amazon. His Life Plan includes: Traditional Medicine, (Nukanchipa Alpa), Ethnoeducation, Ancient Agriculture, Warmi (woman) and Willadiru (communication). Previously they obtained food in a sustainable way through “chagras”: Ancestral agriculture that they transmitted between generations. Contact with external civilizations affected their traditions, natural resources, reducing their territory; leading to the loss of their forms of production, among other negative impacts associated with low sustainability and environmental impact.

2: Strengthen the program that was carried out 15 years ago at the Inga Yachaikury educational institution considering: 1) strengthening of ancestral farms and 2) recovery and exchange of knowledge through intergenerational knowledge dialogue.

3: Consolidate the Chagra of the Inga Yachaikury  institution as a pilot of comprehensive management of Amazon resources and sustainable food production, low carbon footprint and income from surplus production, becoming a center of education, exchange of experiences and knowledge 

In Latin America and the Caribbean, approximately 39.3 million people suffer from undernourishment, in Colombia about 2.4 million (FAO, 2019). Regarding indigenous people, their food risks are associated with imbalances in the natural order of their ancestral territories caused by dispossession that leads to insufficient land and natural resources, as well as the impacts of trade policies on material and intangible heritage (traditional knowledge ) and on local productive systems (chagras), generally at a competitive disadvantage in the context of these policies

The causes include: demographic growth with insufficient response of productive capacities, environmental deterioration and impertinence of Food Security policies.

The Ingas, an ethnic group originating in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon, live in Colombia in the departments of Nariño, Putumayo and Caquetá in legally constituted indigenous reserves, they are approximately 15,450 people (DANE 2015).

The strengthening of the Chagra of the Colegio Yaichaicurí would contribute to the recovery of seeds and traditional practices, representing food security and sovereignty for the School's population (80 boys and girls), constituting itself as a “comprehensive demonstrative chagra” for the surrounding communities (7000 people in the impact area), generating food under sustainable practices with low carbon emissions and consolidating itself as teaching center

1. Chaga Inga is an indigenous, diversified and sustainable ancestral productive system where all its components are interrelated, projected through agroforestry and where forest, agricultural and livestock components strategically subsist. La Chagra expresses the ancient traditional knowledge acquired by the Inga indigenous community during its relationship with the Amazon ecosystem.

2. The Chagra system mostly supplies the nutritional requirements under the Amazonian ecological conditions, in addition to providing cultural interactions and the development of skills and capacities for families. The Chagra is not only a space where food and timber products are grown that help the sustainability of forests and the food security of the communities, in it people interact in different ways, share experiences and learnings, stories, legends and social values for harmonious coexistence are practiced

3. Chagra is characterized by the establishment of crops in short periods of rapid use and in long periods of moderate use; integration of various local plant species that take full advantage of available water, light and nutrient resources; minimum use of agrochemical inputs and efficient use of forest succession resources that improve and protect the soil and reduce phytosanitary problems. Additionally, enrichment with ause of organic fertilizers, production of plants in nurseries.

The proposed solution is directly related to the life of the Inga indigenous community. To keep their culture alive, Los Ingas is organized around their Life Plan, with programs that seek to recover their culture and improve the well-being of the communities. The life plan is launched based on the ancestral knowledge transmitted by the Elderly and its integration with the training plan of the Yaichacurí School plays a key role, so the students return to their communities to apply traditional practices and show other forms of agriculture necessary for the sustainability of the Amazonian territories, such as the use of organic fertilizers, green manures, integrated management of pests and diseases, the planting of pancoger for food, the transformation of products and even the contamination of surpluses.

The strengthening of the Chagras through the planting of plants for forest, medicinal, food, artisanal, religious use, among others, allows not only to cover the nutritional requirements of the population but also to recover ancestral land management practices, the conservation of the biodiversity, recovery of traditional knowledge and even decrease GHG emissions from low carbon footprint and low pollution agricultural production.

The strengthening of the Chagras of the Ingas communities in the context of the low sustainability of the currently established food systems, a phenomenon given in part by the loss of ancestral knowledge, is projected as an agroforestry model that includes woody tree species that capture carbon and they contribute to food production, and can serve as a model to improve the productivity of Amazonian areas that are oriented to food production.