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. Today, The Seedling Project is working to record current farming methods as passed down through generations and as examined by the team of archaeologists, agronomists and biologists of The Cusichaca Trust, a British-run NGO. These methods must be documented before changing agricultural agendas that promote the use of agro-chemicals, rural to urban migration, political unrest, and increased development irretrievably alter them and the knowledge is lost to us and future generations of sustainable farmers.

The Seedling Project is also working to connect rural Peruvians with the developed world, and viceversa. While filmmakers Andrea Dunlap and Hannah Heinrich document mountain agricultural techniques they are also teaching Peruvians how to document themselves on film, on the web, and with a magazine produced locally.

Read more on our blog, and see our pages on Flickr for more photos and detailed captions.

Farmers, gardeners: interact with the project on our wiki. Pick up sustainable farming techniques from Peru, or share yours.

photograph © 2006 The Seedling Project