A woman weeds a maize field in Andamarca, Peru.
In ancient times the Incas fed an empire with marginal land utilizing sustainable farming techniques—even managing to store 3-5 years worth of extra food in case drought, hail or frost ruined a year’s crops. These methods must be documented before time irretrievably alters them and the knowledge is lost to us and future generations of sustainable farmers.
Farmers in Peru utilize ancient terraces, called andenes, to modify vast tracts of steep cactus-covered slopes into arable land, prevent erosion and make the most of what rain comes along. While malnutrition and poverty are rampant, thousands of hectares of andenes lie abandoned and unused. What began as a mass exodus from the country to the cities in the age of Sendero Luminoso is now reversing itself, as people move back to the land of their birth.
The project is directed by Andrea Dunlap, who has worked variously as the archivist for Makani Power, the director of design and production for photo-journalism book publisher Umbrage Editions, and various and sundry other companies, publishers and magazines, including Farrar, Straus & Giroux, National Geographic Adventure magazine, O’Reilly publishing and for her dad, the Gentleman Farmer (in no particular order).