COP26: In Peru, the Ancestral Genius of the Incas Helps the Crops

For the full article in French, published by Courier International, please click here. To read the original version in Spanish on OjoPúblico, please click here.

To mitigate the variations of harvest yields, in particular, because of the climatic disruption, a Peruvian researcher built in the Andes, with his own hands, a qolca, a community granary used during the pre-Columbian era.

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Natural refrigeration

Mario Quispe decided to build a stone barn high in the Andes Mountains. Last November, the plan was ready. The qolca will be built on the northern slope of Mount Q'ente Killay, where the frozen wind that blows with force from the Nevado Ausangate hits, at 6,384 meters above sea level. This guarantees natural refrigeration to preserve food.

The circular structure of more than two meters high will be installed on a promontory. The rock will be extracted from the same spot with a chisel and a crowbar. And once the stones are cut, they will be assembled with a mortar made of mud mixed with a natural binder obtained from the San Pedro cactus, of Andean origin.