Inca's Gold
How one alum is helping descendants of Andean Incas
by Marlene Fritz
Kurt Manrique helps Inca descendants market specialty potatoes
It was July 1993 when the rolling hills of the Palouse first welcomed Kurt Manrique-Klinge to the University of Idaho. A Fulbright Scholar from Lima, Peru, Manrique had been admitted to the doctoral program in CALS’ Department of Plant, Soil, and Entomological Sciences to study potato breeding and postharvest management. “It was completely green and very quiet. The weather was pleasant, and I was really impressed,” he says.
Before flying into Moscow, Manrique had been a research assistant at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru. In the Andes—“cradle of the potato” and home of 3,000-plus potato varieties—descendants of the early Incas are still growing potatoes at altitudes above 10,000 feet. Since domesticating the potato 7,000 years ago, they had accumulated a wealth of indigenous knowledge on production techniques, but their unfamiliarity with modern consumer trends and marketing channels were costing them dearly in missed opportunities—and in family income that could reduce their poverty.
Helping Andean farmers find new markets
Manrique, who earned his Ph.D. and returned to Lima in 1998, is now CIP’s technical coordinator of INCOPA/Papa Andina, a Swiss-funded development project dedicated to improving innovation and competitiveness in Peru’s potato industry.
Among INCOPA’s initiatives that link research to development is T’ikapapa—a creative, sustainable partnership between potato-chain stakeholders and small-scale farmers. Manrique calls it “an example of a new marketing concept that demonstrates it is possible for Andean farmers to capitalize on the added values of biodiversity and tap into exclusive markets.” T’ikapapa-trademarked fresh native potatoes are now being sold through Wong, Peru’s largest supermarket chain.
Enjoying worldwide acclaim, T’ikapapa is among five projects to earn the United Nations’ 2007 SEED Award and one of 12 finalists in the Shell World Challenge. A recipient of Peru’s Entrepreneurial Creativity Award and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Medal of Honor, it has been covered by BBC World and Newsweek. “I’m very glad,” says Manrique. “There is global interest in new ways to reduce poverty among excluded indigenous people.”
So far, more than 300 Andean farm families have benefited from the growing demand for specialty foods. Focus groups of tourists in Lima’s leading hotels had confirmed that novel raw and processed products could bring added economic value to a people who had long been rich in potato diversity but little else.
Imagine purple, red, blue, and patterned potato chips and bright yellow mashed potatoes and you understand how biodiversity can boost incomes.
“There’s still a new world to be discovered by gastronomers, consumers, and processors,” says Manrique. “That’s the main message.”
Mounds of straw create billowy nest where Inca descendants
traditionally stored harvested potatoes in Peru’s mountains.
Now Kurt Manrique shares Idaho storage techniques to help
Andes potatoes survive longer.
Above, boxed Inca’s Gold chips are ready for market.
These Andean farmers still eat potatoes three meals a day, work their steep and terraced fields with Inca-designed implements, and store their spuds unharvested in the ground or in small, straw-covered piles, Manrique says. “That’s not really a safe way to store potatoes because they’re exposed to insects and you’re magnifying any bacterial infections they might have.”
Lessons shared between Idaho and the Andes
Manrique is meeting a crucial need for education in postharvest management by developing a training module—adapted from University of Idaho Extension recommendations—for his Andean audiences. He’s also conducting research on storing potatoes in wooden boxes and treating them with such native insect-deterrents and sprout inhibitors as oil from the herb muna. It was when he was investigating alternative sprout inhibitors on the Internet that he discovered that former classmate Nora Olsen shared his interest—and an international project on muna oil was born at Idaho’s Kimberly Research and Extension Center.
“Since we’ve done so much work on mint and clove oil, this was a natural fit,” says Olsen, UI Extension potato specialist in Twin Falls. Collaborating with Peruvian colleagues who are drawing on ancient Inca knowledge “expands your mind and makes you think a little bit outside the box,” she says. “We’re intrigued.” The results suggest that muna oil offers significant promise—particularly for niche organic markets—and the team is now determining the future direction of their research.
At the Aberdeen Research and Extension Center, where Manrique completed his dissertation project on chipping and frying quality in potatoes, former major professor Steve Love also sees the benefit of nurturing relationships among a global network of graduates and colleagues. “We live in a time when it’s getting more and more difficult to import and export germplasm, which is critical to all of our breeding programs,” he says. “A lot of countries are less and less willing to share, and personal contacts become essential.”
Promise for future generations
For Manrique, the cultural richness he experienced among his fellow University of Idaho international students and the lasting relationships he now enjoys around the world are what he values most about his graduate school experience. He and his wife, Ruth—who accompanied him to Moscow and Aberdeen—hope their 9-year-old son can return to Idaho when he’s of college age.
Academics and agricultural science are a foundation of Manrique’s life. The son of the National Agrarian University’s graduate school dean, his research interests have expanded beyond food processing and postharvest technology into integrated crop management and breeding for pest resistance. Someday soon he hopes to formalize an institutional relationship between the International Potato Center and his alma mater to strengthen the link between research and development.
Love couldn’t be more pleased with Manrique’s accomplishments. “He obviously took what he learned here and is working hard to benefit people who really struggle—and in doing so he is sharing material and knowledge that we can use.”
Contact Kurt Manrique.
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