1st Seed and Knowledge Exchange Gathering of Alto Putumayo

Pasto, Nariño. October 31, 2025. On Saturday, October 25, 2025, in the municipality of Sibundoy, Putumayo, the First Seed and Knowledge Exchange Gathering of Alto Putumayo took place, as part of the National Seed Plan (PNS) “Ethnic Route” project implemented by AGROSAVIA. This event brought together the Inga and Kamëntsá Biyá communities, who shared their knowledge, traditions, and experiences related to the use, conservation, and circulation of native and creole seeds, considered the biocultural heritage of the Indigenous peoples of the Sibundoy Valley.

For Indigenous communities, seeds are symbols of life, memory, resistance, and spirituality. Each seed holds an ancestral story passed down from generation to generation, connected to natural cycles, lunar phases, and agricultural rituals that ensure harmony between human beings and nature. Their conservation, multiplication, and exchange represent acts of food sovereignty and territorial defense in the face of risks such as the loss of genetic diversity and the displacement of native species by commercial crops.

During the gathering, participants exchanged seeds of corn/maize, beans, cuna, black goldenberry, medicinal plants, among others, thus strengthening local networks of exchange and seed custody. Through these practices, the collective commitment to preserving the biodiversity of the communities of the Amazonian foothills, protecting ecosystems, and transmitting knowledge across generations, which sustains the cultural and spiritual identity of the peoples of Alto Putumayo, was reaffirmed.

This gathering, supported by AGROSAVIA and attended by traditional authorities, community spiritual leaders, and institutions such as SENA, the Sibundoy Municipal Mayor’s Office, ICA, and representatives of the seed houses from the Cañamomo Lomaprieta Indigenous Reservation in Riosucio, Caldas, among others, symbolizes the union and dialogue between scientific and ancestral knowledge. It acknowledges that the sustainability of traditional production systems such as jajañ and chagra depends on the respect for nature, biological diversity, and the living culture of the communities that inhabit them.

In Alto Putumayo, each seed is a legacy, a story, and a promise for the future; a reminder that to preserve the land is also to preserve life.