Is Peru the cradle of the world’s food? What the data says

By /

People often say that Peru is the cradle of the world’s food. There is a lot of truth in that, and some exaggeration too, and one factor that is almost never mentioned: time. We looked at the data from the largest study on the origin of agricultural crops, and at the archaeology of Peruvian farming, to see where Peru really stands.

    What the study says

    In 2016, an international team led by Colin Khoury published a study on the origin of crops in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It divides the world into 23 regions and shows, for 150 agricultural products in FAO statistics, where they originated and are most diverse.

    The result is clear. West Asia is listed with 42 products, the South and East Mediterranean with 35, and South Asia and South-Eastern Europe with 34 each. Peru belongs to two regions. Tropical South America is listed with 20 products and ranks ninth. The Andean region is listed with 5: potato, tomato, quinoa, beans and lupin.

    Adding up Peru’s two regions gives 25 products. But they are not only Peru’s: they are shared with Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and other neighbours. Another finding of the study: on average, 68.7% of the food a country consumes comes from crops that originated in other regions.

    What the study does not see

    There are two important limits. First, it measures regions, not countries: it does not say how many crops Peru “has”, only which regions it belongs to. Second, it only counts products in FAO statistics, that is, the major crops. Maca, oca, olluco, kiwicha, mashua and camu camu are left out, along with the enormous diversity of varieties within each crop.

    Where Peru does stand out

    The cultivated potato was domesticated once, in the Andes of southern Peru, according to Spooner and colleagues (2005). It is now one of the world’s staple foods, and official sources speak of between 3,500 and more than 4,000 varieties in Peru, depending on how they are counted.

    Quinoa originated around Lake Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia, according to the FAO. And the study places the tomato in the Andean region.

    Maize, on the other hand, has its region of origin in Mexico and Central America. Peru did not invent it, but it conserves 52 races, according to the Ministry of the Environment.

    One myth worth correcting: the oldest evidence of cacao use is in the Ecuadorian Amazon, about 5,300 years ago, not in Peru (Zarrillo and colleagues, 2018).

    Peru is also among the 17 megadiverse countries (Conservation International, 1998). But that list measures wild species, not domesticated foods.

    Peru has been farming for thousands of years

    The Khoury study answers one question: where each crop originated. But there is another question that is almost never asked: how long has a territory been farmed, and with how much ingenuity? That is where Peru’s history is strongest.

    More than 9,000 years ago. In the Nanchoc Valley, in northern Peru, a team led by Tom Dillehay found remains of squash about 9,200 years old, peanut about 7,600 years old and cotton about 5,500 years old (radiocarbon years, according to a 2007 study in Science). They are some of the oldest known evidence of farming in the Americas. One important caveat: they show that these plants were grown there, not that they originated there.

    About 4,000 years ago: Caral. In the Supe Valley, Caral is considered the oldest known urban centre in the Americas. Its large platform mounds were built between about 4,100 and 3,600 years ago, and activity may have begun around 4,700 years ago. Its people grew beans and squash in irrigated fields (Science News, 2001).

    The Incas: an empire that knew how to store food. At its height, in the 15th century, terraced farmland (andenes) covered about a million hectares in Peru, according to Smithsonian Magazine. The stone walls absorb heat by day and release it at night, which protects roots from frost and lengthens the growing season. Across the empire there were tens of thousands of storehouses (qollqas) for maize, potatoes and quinoa. Ordinary goods could be kept for up to two years and freeze-dried foods for up to four, and officials kept track of the stocks with quipus, knotted cords (World History Encyclopedia).

    Chuño: food made to last. Andean peoples preserved potatoes by freeze-drying them naturally: exposed to frost at night and sun by day, they lose almost all their water. It only works above about 3,600 metres. A fresh potato is around 80% water and rots within a week at lower altitudes, while chuño can last for decades, and llama caravans carried it across the empire. In 2024, archaeologists found two pieces of chuño about 500 years old in an Inca storeroom at Tambo Viejo, in the Acarí Valley (Journal of Field Archaeology).

    What it all adds up to. There is evidence of farming from more than 9,000 years ago, of a city sustained by irrigated crops about 4,000 years ago and of an empire that solved how to store and transport food at altitude. If the question is where each plant comes from, Peru shares the podium with its neighbours. If the question is who has known how to farm difficult land for thousands of years, Peru has plenty of arguments.

    So, cradle or not?

    Peru is not the cradle of all the world’s food, and the data do not allow us to say it is the first. But it is the cradle of some of the most important foods, such as potato and quinoa, and it shares with its neighbours regions that gave the world cassava, cocoa and peanut. On top of that comes what is rarely told: more than 9,000 years of documented farming, one of the first cities in the Americas and an empire able to preserve food for years. Much of its wealth also lies in the diversity of varieties and in local crops that global statistics do not capture. At Colibrí Origins we prefer to say what can be demonstrated, and what can be demonstrated about Peru is already a great deal.

    The data come from specific scientific studies and can be interpreted in other ways. The figures about Peru that circulate (potato varieties, cultivated species, maize races) vary by source and year. Archaeological dates are expressed in radiocarbon years and are revised as new excavations are made, so they may change.

    Sources

    © 2026 COLIBRÍ ORIGINS. All rights reserved.

    Cookie Preferences
    Scroll to Top