For those who live at the world’s highest elevations, it’s not the lack of oxygen that takes their breath away, it’s the lack of food. According to new research undertaken by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, out of an estimated 800 million undernourished people in the world, a disproportionately large number live in mountains. Thin, easily eroded soils and a harsh, unpredictable climate mean crops are difficult to grow. Because of the distance from markets, it is also difficult to trade modest surpluses that would enable farmers to enter the cash economy. And, at extreme altitudes, the body behaves differently, burning more calories and requiring more nutrient-rich foods than it does closer to sea level.

In this third instalment on mountains, Earth Report travels from the High Andes to Ethiopia to find communities coping with hardship by blending traditional with modern farming techniques.
 

Great History

Some of the world's greatest civilisations originated and thrived in mountains. Until the 16th century, the Incan empire supported a population exceeding that of present day Peru. Why were they able to succeed when so many mountain communities now struggle?

"The Incas, for example, tried to organise and have lands at different altitudes and with different products. There was an integration between different areas, of lowlands and highlands, so there was exchange, that now is completely destroyed, there is not such a connection" (Mario Tapia, Project Director, United Nations Development Programme).

Today, the time and expense involved in travelling between highlands and lowlands makes it difficult for mountain communities to obtain basic goods and services, as well as to find markets for their own products.
 

Ethiopia: The Lack of Land

In Ethiopia, nearly two thirds of the population live in highland areas 3,000 metres above sea level. For generations, people have been subsistence farmers, depending on land for their survival. Now, the needs of a growing population have outstripped the capacity of local resources, and many have been left landless. In 1975, Ethiopia's former military government nationalised farm land and introduced land redistribution practices that continue today. But now there's no land left to give out.

"Land is the major economic asset in that area. Your social, as well as economic, status is based on the aquisition of land, the size of the land, the quality of the land, so the landless are in the worst category. If they don’t have land, socially they are not recognised" (Tezera Sisseha, National Consultant, Health and Nutrition, Ethiopia).
 

The Gender Inbalance

In some mountain communities, such as the Amhara region of Ethiopia, the difference between being poor and being among the poorest of the poor is ownership of an ox and plough - and your gender.

Aselefech is a single mother with land on which to grow food. But because local customs forbid women from ploughing, she must pay a man to grow the food for her.

"She’s not allowed to plough the land herself so she has to hire men or other people to do that for her, and in the process she has to pay him half or more of the harvest. So that means she is getting a lot less from the same area of land as a similar male-headed household would, so she is forced to find other income" (Mark Wijne, Nutrition Consultant, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation).
 

A Question of Diet

Guido Ayala is a nutritionist and professor at San Marcos University in Lima. He’s spent seven years studying the nutritional levels, habits and customs of Quechua people living at high altitudes in the Peruvian Andes. During family visits, Dr. Ayala takes note of the variety of foods people consume, as well as calculating the nutrients and calories they need to live at this altitude.

"If you consider the community of Acconcunca, which is 4,500 metres above sea level, their diet consists exclusively of meat from alpaca in different forms, dried or fresh, and potatoes. From the point of view of nutritional value, it’s a good quality protein, but they probably lack vitamins and minerals" (Ayala).

However, upon closer inspection, Dr. Ayala discovered something surprising about the impact that indigenous knowledge was having on local nutrition.

"There was no evidence of a clinical deficiency. So we began to hypothesize that the farmers were not only farming, but also collecting wild plants. When they are out in the fields herding animals, they are also collecting and eating plants. And because they are herding during the rainy season, when wild plants grow, they find fruits in the field that they eat. Those fruits have vitamins. So this is the explanation for why we didn’t find any deficiencies here" (Ayala).
 

Biodiversity Hotspot

Throughout history, indigenous agriculture and environmental knowledge passed down through generations of mountain people, have been invaluable to human development. Mountain ecosystems are the original source for a number of the 20 plant species that now supply 80 percent of the world's food. The more common these foods become, the more important it will be to preserve the wild relatives of many of these plants.

As a consequence of rapid elevation, slope and orientation to the sun, mountain environments nurture unique pockets of life.  Many of the species that are found here exist nowhere else.

"Mountains are among the richest repositories of biodiversity in the world, we are talking not just about food and fuel and fibre and medicine and forage that’s useful to the people who live there, but it’s also something that’s globally important. What we’ve learned is that the more diversity there is in a region, the better that region can cope with the major environmental challenges that are coming forward" (Eve Crowley, Senior Officer, Rural Poverty Alleviation, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization).
 

Miracle Plant: Enset

Ethiopians have had to cope with cycles of drought and famine as far back as many can remember. Yet in the country's southern highlands, famine has been virtually non-existent. The reason may have something to do with a plant called enset, and a system of agriculture that has been practised sustainably for thousands of years.

Enset looks like a banana plant, but it’s actually quite different. It doesn’t bear fruit, it can survive long periods without water, and once it’s mature, it can be harvested at any time. Until about 250 years ago, enset was grown throughout Ethiopia. Now it’s largely unknown in many northern communities.

Cultivated in combination with livestock as well as others crops, the enset system of agriculture is ecologically balanced as well as providing a nutritious diet. More importantly, knowledge of enset’s resistance to drought, passed down over generations, has made it an effective buffer against famine.

"People who depend upon enset live in the southern highlands, and we think that has historical explanations. It wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century that the independent kingdoms of Ethiopia were incorported into the modern nation of Ethiopia. These enset systems have not been disturbed by other systems that have been imposed upon them, except in relatively recent times" (Steven Brandt, anthropologist, University of Florida, USA).

In 1984, while nearly one million Ethiopians died in one of the worst famines in modern history, the people in these communities survived.
 

2002 Year of Mountains

The United Nations declared 2002 the International Year of Mountains. Many governments around the world are now beginning to listen to the voices of mountain people and consider the ways in which their lives could be improved.

"Even in remote zones, people need to have choices. If they don’t have choices, if they don’t have different livelihood options, if their resource base is limited, if they do not have access to land, if they do not have access to basic credit and public services, people will either move and that indigenous knowledge will be lost, or they will end up having to destroy the environment on which they depend, which they would also like to conserve for their children" (Eve Crowley, Senior Officer, Rural Poverty Alleviation, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization).