Iraima Lugo-Montilla ^1,2* Carla Ladera Pimentel Águas ²

• ¹ Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World, Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
• ² State University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

This paper analyzes the recovery and conservation of potato landraces at the Venezuelan Andes Páramo, in Mérida's state. Venezuelan Andes smallholder potato farmers have been producing knowledge, processes, and socio-technical artifacts for the recovery of potato seeds and other types of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. It has involved different types of socio-technical dynamics and human and non-human actors. Universities, research institutions, local and national governments, etc., have supported this experience. Moving in the opposite direction of historical factors, such as the loss of complex processes involving genetic resources, agricultural modernization, oil dependency, technological dependency on agricultural supplies, and other recent issues, like food shortage, Venezuelan Andean smallholder potato farmers have been rescuing ancient potato seeds using a traditional technique, such as Tinopós, a kind of caves for storage; and producing new varieties using processes of social appropriation of technology techniques, such as genetic improvement. A fieldwork was carried out in 2019 together with documentary review, thematic analysis, and a technology inventory. It is possible to say that there is a narrow relationship between the diversity of Andean root, tuber crops, the biophysical and climatic conditions of the Páramo, the traditional knowledge and peasant communities that have settled in these territories. We emphasize border relations and cultural translation between different cultures and the recovery as well as conservation of native potato seeds in the Venezuelan Andean Paramo as a development of a local project of construction of social technology for food sovereignty and local development.