Life can be difficult for people living in the Andes Mountains. The air, soil and climate quality make it difficult to grow food. This causes children and adults alike to suffer from malnutrition. Despite these difficulties, communities in Peru are improving their conditions with the benefits of greenhouse farming.
A Lifestyle of Peru's Highlanders
There are many "off-the-grid" communities in the Andes mountains. For some of these communities, it is a two-hour walk to everyday conveniences such as medical care, electricity, phone services or the Internet.
An average day for a mother in the highlands starts with a hike to their agricultural fields or "chakras." There, they will spend most of their day putting hard work into farming the land for their families. For most of these families, they eat what they can grow. In the harsh climate of the highlands, the options for food are limited. Diets most often rely heavily on corn and potatoes. This makes malnutrition a constant problem for these communities, especially for growing children. Four out of 10 children experience malnutrition in Peru's highlands because of the lack of resources for growing nutritious food all year round.
The Andean Alliance of Sustainable Development (AASD) is a U.S.-certified nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting community-led agricultural projects in the highlands of Peru. The nonprofit created a project that would use the highland communities' strengths of adaptability and shared community work ethics to build better agricultural systems.
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