Protecting and restoring nature in Peruvian agriculture

11 June 2024

We work closely with farmers, growers and suppliers across the globe to help play our part in restoring nature and biodiversity, whilst producing delicious food. At Sainsbury’s, as part of our commitment to becoming nature positive, we’ve taken action to protect and regenerate some of the world's most precious native ecosystems in Peru.

Local community members at the Native Plant Conservation Centre

Working Together

In close collaboration with fruit and veg supplier Barfoots, together with Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and other local partners, Sainsbury’s has supported a habitat restoration and community agrobiodiversity project, in the Ica region of coastal Peru since 2014. The project focuses on planting native trees which deliver a plethora of benefits to natural ecosystems because of their deep roots, these include increased percolation of water into the ground which reduces flood risk and soil runoff, replenishing depleted groundwater aquafers, which in-turn increases soil fertility. The native trees also provide food and habitat for wild species. We are delighted to still be involved today and have recently committed to another year of support in 2024. This holistic project is an example of how food supply chains and conservation science can play a role in restoring native biodiversity and supporting local communities, whilst ensuring the climate resilience of agriculture for future generations.

Why Peru?

Peru’s rapid agricultural expansion and extensive tree removal has brought great benefits to many over the last decades. However, agricultural expansion has also resulted in inevitable environmental impacts including threats to habitats and rare endemic species, as well as water extraction from natural ecosystems.

The Ica region can be referred to as an open-air ‘greenhouse’ due to its ideal crop growing conditions – an arid climate with groundwater from the Andes which makes it a great place to grow grapes, avocados, and asparagus, in addition to a wide range of traditional crops. This project aims to work with local communities to engage in education on the benefits of native trees, how to plant and grow them, and ultimately alleviate the pressure of intensive farming and extraction on this unique ecosystem.

The Ica region has seen the disappearance of its ancient forest due to key native trees such as the huarango tree being cut down for charcoal and construction. The extraction of native trees has negatively impacted soils and led to increased desertification of the landscape. These native plants enabled ancient desert cultures (such as the Nazca) to thrive and adapt over many years. For example, the deep roots of ancient trees help to bring groundwater to the surface for more shallow rooting crops. To face the global challenges we see today, it is vital we take constant action to protect and restore species in native and resilient habitat assemblages.

The native huarango tree

A second focus of the project is the critical need to conserve the rare ‘huerta’ varieties, which have been domesticated and selected for the last 8,000 years (during the Nazca and Moche pre-Columbian cultures) and are still found in a few traditional smallholdings. The project has identified that these domesticated and ‘landrace’ varieties include nitrogen-fixing trees, that (by sustaining the soil fertility) have allowed the production of coloured cotton, maize, lima beans, lucuma, guava and guanabana amongst many other crops. Nitrogen fixing plants enhance nutrient exchange in the soil, boosting its fertility and organic input for moisture retention whilst reducing reliance on synthetic fertilisers. The project has focused on ‘conservation through use’ - propagating hundreds of these rare and useful varieties to share with local smallholders and new agricultural migrants.

Progress so far

The progress and outcomes of the project have been documented over the last decade, outlined in this blog. Some of the most notable project achievements include:

Establishing the first regional Native Plant Conservation Centre: Today this is a training hub and community resource developing native propagation, restoration, and seed management protocols for all local species. Here, a storage facility manages and produces over 5 million seeds for rare native plants that are collected, bulked and registered. These native species are reintroduced to farms and orchards in the area. Recently the centre has identified the Arrayán tree as a particular species of interest.

Reforestation and ecosystem restoration: Planting, direct seeding and seed saving has been established across the region, creating diverse habitats and useful crops, as well as helping conserve water, reduce flood risk, and capture carbon. Through collaborative cross-community projects, desert flora corridors have been established up to 12km in length, delivering wildlife corridor habitats to key species such as the desert fox, wild guinea pigs, endemic lizards and hummingbirds, other pollinators, and now include nesting sites for 46 types of breeding birds.

Education and research: There is an established schools programme, teaching children in schools how to propagate and benefit from useful plants, the centre also hosts worker’s children for workshops. Multiple research studies on the site have led to published scientific articles, alongside working on the government ministry contract to provide the regional forest strategy.

In 2022, the project team led by local NGO, Huarango Nature, are focussing on community-based conservation. They have continued to work to save critically endangered native trees collaborate with farmers like Agricola Chapi and Agrolatina and other stakeholder partners like Bee Better Certified and Barfoots, to establish an increasing number of restored pollinator corridors.

This has led to the area under restoration expanding into other dry forest regions and extended conservation efforts to include the spectacled bear that migrate seasonally to coastal dry forest. A second plant conservation centre has also been established with Ingleby farm and forest in Lambayeque, Northern Peru. In November 2022, National Geographic funded a pilot trial for an innovative method to complete large-scale surveying in sensitive landscapes which integrated with this project work.

A whole system approach

To restore an entire ecosystem, each ecosystem service must be optimised and allowed to thrive in terms of biodiversity, hydrology and biomass. These ecosystem services in the Ica region support the production of food alongside protecting biodiversity, water availability, the climate, and people; here are some examples:

- Pollination: Research has shown that native pollinator bees and wasps, which inhabit traditional agricultural land, pollinate much more efficiently than introduced and costly honey bees.

- Biological control: Providing habitats for insectivorous birds that naturally help to control insect pests therefore reducing crop damage.

- Flood management: By planting trees and shrubs, reforested areas are building leaf litter layers at a rate of 2–4 cm per year. Tree roots help to stabilise soil structure and therefore increase water holding capacity.

- Saving water: Planting increased varieties of native vegetation helps to reduce surface water run off and soil erosion, this is becuase they increase percolation of water into the ground-reducing the need for irrigation. Native hedge species can reduce water consumption by 50%.

- Worker nutrition: A thriving agrobiodiverse region provides good quality, and nutritionally dense traditional crop varieties to feed local communities.

- Worker wellbeing: The conservation centre provides a community hub for local people to connect with each other and learn about native varieties and ancient cultural heritage and traditional ecological knowledge.

- Carbon capture: Native trees and vegetation act as sustainable carbon sinks, that alongside well maintained healthy soils sequester carbon into the ground.

Sainsbury’s is committed to protecting and restoring nature which, as can be seen from all of the above, also supports us achieving targets under water, climate, and social pillars in our ‘Plan For Better’ sustainability strategy.