{"id":9100,"date":"2018-04-06T16:09:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T20:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=9100"},"modified":"2025-10-18T16:33:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T20:33:59","slug":"peru-food-security","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/peru-food-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Working to Improve Food Security in Peru"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Students Working to Improve Food Security in Peru\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

With clouds almost constantly overhead, Lima seems the unlikeliest of deserts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sun shines only 1,284 hours per year in the Peruvian capital. It\u2019s greyer than Vancouver, but despite the cloud cover and tropical Pacific location, Lima has no rainy season. It receives just a few centimetres of rain each year, and with 10 million mouths to feed \u2013 many belonging to poor, rural migrants \u2013 food security is an urgent issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lima, Peru<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLima is in the desert, and it\u2019s extremely vulnerable to external shocks,\u201d says Lieven Pype of Canadian University Service Overseas<\/a> (Cuso) Peru, \u201cincluding droughts, floods, access to food and earthquakes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With its Feeding Lima from Within project, Cuso Peru is seeking to alleviate Lima\u2019s food security issues, and empower Lime\u00f1os with healthy, nutritious food and improved community organization. It\u2019s a 30-month initiative to strengthen urban agriculture that will convert existing gardens into urban agriculture hubs, create a fair trade labelling system for local produce and more. It uses a multi-stakeholder model that brings together NGOs, universities, producers associations, networks and other organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Researching Key Issues in Urban Agriculture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A Carleton University course called Global International Group Project: Food Security in Lima, Peru<\/a> is one of them. This offering from the Bachelor of Global and International Studies<\/a> program focuses on e-voluntarism and experiential learning. Its 21 students contributed research on key issues in urban agriculture for Feeding Lima from Within and presented their findings to the team in Lima via Skype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur class was tasked with four goals,\u201d says instructor Marylynn Steckley. \u201cResearch policies and practices of urban agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean; investigate agricultural possibilities for Lima; identify researchers and organizations that would be helpful for Cuso Lima to connect with; and identify marketing initiatives that will serve Lima well as it seeks to advocate for local food systems and dignify local producers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Students presented their findings to the team in Lima via Skype<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Peru\u2019s lack of water is just one factor in food security. It\u2019s also vulnerable to erosion. Students Hailey Climenhage, Seth Eichhorst and Lauren Ogden suggest that vertical farming \u2013 where food is grown in stacked layers — is one way to help preserve Peru\u2019s remaining soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVertical gardening ties directly into the idea of more dispersed community gardens,\u201d Ogden says.  \u201cIt can be done virtually anywhere. It\u2019s low-tech, energy efficient and significantly less water intensive than traditional gardening. It requires no soil, so it can help preserve remaining arable land, while also reducing pressure to overwork remaining soil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peru is also a major producer of gold, lead, silver and zinc, and waste-contaminated water disproportionately impacts poor and Indigenous people. With their short documentary Climate Change and Water Scarcity in Lima, Peru, <\/em>students Emily Monchamp, Hansimran Hans, Ghulam Faizi, Anjali Shanmugam and Daniel Omara advocate education to ensure those impacted by contamination know their rights, and looked to Bangladesh for a possible solution. In 1999-2005, arsenic contamination there was widespread. After testing 5,000 wells across the country, the government treated them, prioritizing the most contaminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our interconnected world, parallels come from unexpected places. Jessica Hennessy and Chanel Reid explored the possibility of partnerships with about 50 organizations, researchers and NGOs in the hopes of building long-lasting collaborations. One of them is Black Creek Community Farm \u2013 an eight-acre community farm near Toronto\u2019s York University.  It may be in a different hemisphere, but it shares many of the aims of Feeding Lima from Within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey emphasize the importance of local community participation,\u201d say Hennessy and Reid. \u201dThey\u2019re an urban agriculture centre that engages, educates and empowers diverse communities through sustainable food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Establishing a Strategic Vision for Food Security<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Farm director Leticia Deawuo shared her expertise in urban agriculture, including establishing a residents\u2019 council. It allowed the community to have a sense of control by addressing their concerns and establishing a strategic vision. It resulted in high levels of commitment to the project and a sense of ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the ground in Lima, a whole different kind of networking will be needed to ensure uptake on urban agriculture. Raising awareness is key, and with 50 per cent of Lime\u00f1o Internet users on Facebook, social media is a key element of an engagement strategy formulated by Zaiba Ali and Maggie Diouf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFacebook engagement can be improved 70 per cent simply by showing a picture,\u201d says Diouf. \u201cPhotojournalism can tell the story of local produce and the people who grow it. It doesn\u2019t have to be costly. You can use volunteer photographers. We believe it\u2019s so important to inspire your audience, which is why we created the food inspiration campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Instructor Marylynn Steckley and the team in Lima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“The goal is to take Peru away from import dependence, and maximize local engagement in the economy. This can be done by posting inspirational pictures of produce, and beautiful dishes, with recipes attached. We need to revalorize Peru\u2019s local produce by showing consumers what they can create with locally sourced options. Take food blogs \u2013 bold and bright photography will surely have consumers wanting to cook their own version of a dish and share their creation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing \u2013 whether it\u2019s bold pictures or bright ideas \u2013 is a big part of the experience of this new class. The focus on group work and experiential learning replicates work experience in critical ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a requirement in the program to do international experience,\u201d says Ogden, \u201cbut we don\u2019t all have the time or financial resources to go away and do something. This was a really good option for that, and even just to learn about group work. You get a different dynamic working with someone every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With clouds almost constantly overhead, Lima seems the unlikeliest of deserts. The sun shines only 1,284 hours per year in the Peruvian capital. It\u2019s greyer than Vancouver, but despite the cloud cover and tropical Pacific location, Lima has no rainy season. It receives just a few centimetres of rain each year, and with 10 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":9128,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[25,31,1592],"cu_story_tag":[1921,1926],"class_list":["post-9100","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-student-experience","cu_story_type-sustainability","cu_story_type-teaching-learning","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-public-and-global-affairs","cu_story_tag-international"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/9100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/9100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98448,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/9100\/revisions\/98448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=9100"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=9100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}