Ancestral knowledge, centered in Mother Nature, is in the indigenous discourse and international forums. Caliata, a resilient
community in Ecuador’s central highlands faces internal structural problems and external pressures. Nevertheless, it has
retained an ancestral knowledge deeply integrated into a preColumbian system of cultivation terraces, agrodiversity, native
crops, and natural cycles’ management, which combine to shape a viable agroecosystem. We describe Caliata’s agroecological landscape and community views to explore the sustainability cues that have assured food sovereignty, seemingly from ancient times. Our research provides insights that can be scaledup from local to programs and policy aligned to planetary health.

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Andean-based archeological evidence suggests the existence of heterarchical pre-Columbian societies organized as egalitarian and resource-specialized communities with the capacity to create and maintain intensive productive systems. Using Stark’s analytical framework, we explore the current heterarchical organization of the indigenous Ecuadorian community of Caliata in the context of local cosmovision, identity, and customary institutions. Caliata’s heterarchy is expressed by distributed intelligence through diverse and specialized organizational units that are in constant negotiation in order to reach consensus and to procure optimal responses to uncertainty. The organizational factors at play in mobilizing agri-food systems are key to understanding ancient technologies currently used to support sustainable food security.

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Background
To achieve a healthy sustainable food system globally, it is imperative to understand how local food systems can provide healthy and sustainable conditions.

Objective
To explore, through the indigenous community of Caliata in the Ecuadorian highlands, the factors that support or hinder sustainable Andean food systems.

Methods
We designed a participatory mixed-methods study in Caliata (Chimborazo, Ecuador) and an inclusive and transdisciplinary research process with constant member checking. The study combined culturally validated qualitative methods (n = 49), agroecology-based site analysis, and household surveys (n = 57), including a modified 48-h recall. We used the NOVA food classification system to categorize the diet according to levels of processing and analyzed categorical and numeric data to understand the interplay of parcel size, agrodiversity, and diet diversity.

Results
First, the agroecological space is defined by the stewardship of Pachamama (Mother Nature), a central role in Andean cosmovision, leading to trophic interactions and cycles characterized by a diversity of heterarchical social organizations and agroecologically useful species. Second, consistency was found in dietary patterns; all respondents consume their produce, fruits being the most popular snack (in a 24-h period, 70% reported an average of 2.2 servings), and two-thirds of households’ consumption represent unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Third, gendered agriculture and population aging represent demographic challenges, while chronic health problems remain relatively infrequent compared with the general population. Fourth, food sovereignty is an ecocentric concept based on production, exchanges of seeds and produce, consumption of produce, and knowledge of how agroecological space is treated. This system represents a nutrient loop tied to a system of knowledge about how to care for soil, land, and the ecological community.

Conclusions
Caliata provides important perspectives on linkages between diet, biodiversity, use of agroecological space, and rural–urban dynamics. This small indigenous community offers lessons for achieving both healthy ecosystems and food security.

In order to explore the psychosocial and agroecological dimensions of sustainable diets and their roles in the rural Andean community of Caliata in the Ecuadorian highlands, I conducted a community-centered participatory mixed-methods study. Thirty-nine focus groups and ten key informant interviews were conducted, recorded, translated, transcribed, and analyzed using three-stage coding. The information was triangulated using participant observation, local records, and descriptive statistics from a survey of 57 female household heads, which included a modified 48-hour dietary recall module. Rural appraisal research assessed agroecological dimensions. Ten purposively selected sites were studied alongside local informants in order to obtain diversity indexes and a subset of five sites were analyzed for agroecological parameters using MO-DIRT protocols for soil health and laboratory analysis. A crossover analysis was conducted for agrobiodiversity, parcel size, and dietary diversity using the NOVA food classification to categorize the diet according to levels of processing. Four community-based system dynamics sessions were carried out to elucidate cause-effect relationships.

Caliata has experienced processes of acculturation and the effects of poverty. While gendered agriculture and population aging represent demographic challenges that are directly associated to outmigration. Modern agriculture, based in extensive monocultures and mechanized plowing, represents a potential alternative to labor shortages and to earn additional income. But this form of agriculture represents a threat to Caliata’s traditional landscape. Moreover, Caliata to date has managed to retain its identity, culture, language, and agroecological space, including native crops and a system of knowledge. Hence, people in Caliata refer to themselves as Kichwa-Puruwá indigenous people.

The results of this study reveal a psychosocial dimension defined by a heterarchical mode of organization and government that is reinforced by indigeneity and customary institutions. Heterarchy in Caliata is expressed by distributed and shared intelligence through a diversity of organizational units with specialized functions, which are in constant negotiation in order to reach consensus and procure optimal responses to collective decisions in the face of uncertainty and limited resources. Identity is grounded in a cosmovision that defines a relationship with Mother Nature (Pachamama). Customary institutions reinforce trust and reciprocity and are key to mobilize labor-intensive tasks. An agroecological dimension is characterized by a pre-Columbian system of terraces, ditches, and contention walls, as well as ecological richness and evenness that are managed with ancestral ecological knowledge. Their knowledge includes agrarian calendars that follow natural cycles, pest control, seed selection, and soil restoration measures, which complement the terracing system that creates heterogeneity and acts as energy traps of sunlight, water, and nutrients.

The combined analysis of both dimensions reveal that the community represents a case of positive deviance in that it is a space where sustainable diets are viable and food sovereignty provides an ecocentric way of living based on production, exchange, consumption of local produce, and knowledge of how Pachamama should be treated. In this sense, consistency was found in dietary patterns; all respondents reported intelligent hydration strategies as well as strategies to balance intakes with energy requirements, fruits being the most popular snack. Additionally, two-thirds of households consume unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Meanwhile, chronic health problems remain relatively infrequent compared to the general population.

In conclusion, this study suggests the sustainability of a reinforced loop in Andean agri-food systems, in which sustainable diets support a stable agroecological space and where the dynamic interaction between psychosocial and agroecological factors assure food security. Thus, Caliata provides insights that can be scaled-up from a local experience to programs and policy aligned to planetary health, thereby representing an opportunity to elucidate ideas for sustainability and food security challenges.

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