4. Maca History

Lepidium meyenii Walp. is an important starch plant in the family Brassicaceae, the mustard family. This is the only species in the family cultivated as a starch crop. The plant is one of a few crops that can be grown in very inhospitable regions, at very high altitudes (up to 4,500 m) in the Andean mountains due to its high frost tolerance (one of the highest frost tolerances among cultivated species). Its outstanding capacity to proliferate on one of the world’s worst farmlands with extreme temperatures and soil, turned it a crucial crop for puna inhabitants since ancient times.

Native Peruvians traditionally have utilized Lepidium meyenii Walp. since pre-Incan times for both nutritional and medicinal purposes. It is an important staple in the diets of these people, as it has the highest nutritional value of any food crop grown there. It is rich in sugars, protein, starches, and essential nutrients (especially iodine and iron).

According to archaeological studies, domestication of Lepidium meyenii Walp. appears to have started at least 2,000 years ago by ancient Peruvians of the puna region, around the area of San Blas in the department of Junín, central Peru. Moreover, Lepidium meyenii Walp. primitive cultivars have been found in archaeological sites dating as far back as 1600 B.C. Over the centuries, Lepidium meyenii Walp. has evolved to flourish under extreme conditions.

The custom to eat Lepidium meyenii Walp. in Peru was registered by Spanish chroniclers in the 16th century. During his visit to the Junín area in 1549, the encomendero Juan Tello de Soto Mayor reportedly received ‘maca fruits’ as a tribute and used them to improve the fertility of the livestock they brought from Castile.

Effectively, Lepidium meyenii Walp. hypocotyl/root has been used for centuries in the Andes to enhance fertility in humans and animals. Soon after the Spanish settled in South America, the Spanish found that their livestock were reproducing poorly in the highlands. The local Indians recommended feeding the animals ‘maca’, and so remarkable were the results that Spanish chroniclers gave in-depth reports. Even colonial records of some 200 years ago indicate that payments of (roughly) nine tons of ‘maca’ were demanded from one Andean area alone for this purpose.

It was also stated, during a visit to the area of Huánuco in 1572, that the Chinchaycochas had used the ‘maca’ for bartering since the time of the Incas, as there was no other crop on their lands.

Today, Lepidium meyenii Walp. is grown on small plots with a few rows and up to about 500 m2 in size, on peasant land in communities around Lake Junín (Yanacancha, Ingahuasi, Cerro de Pasco, Ninacaca and Vicco). The rural community is firmly convinced that eating Lepidium meyenii Walp. enables couples who think they are infertile to have children.

To the Andean Indians and indigenous peoples, Lepidium meyenii Walp. is a valuable commodity. Because so little else grows in the region, Lepidium meyenii Walp. is often traded with communities at lower elevations for such other staples as rice, corn, green vegetables, and beans. The dried hypocotyl/roots can be stored for up to seven years.

The hypocotyl/root is consumed fresh or dried. When the fresh hypocotyls/roots have been harvested, the peasants usually bake or roast them in ashes (in the same manner as sweet potatoes) in the field in a traditional manner they call huatias (cooked between clods of red-hot peat) on pachamancas (cooked in contact with hot stones taken from a wood fire and covered with earth). Hypocotyls/roots prepared in this way are considered a treat. However, most of the harvest is left to dry and can then be kept for several years. The dried roots are stored and, later, for eating purposes, the dried hypocotyls are hydrated overnight and boiled or parboiled in water or milk until they are soft to make a porridge. They also are made into a popular sweet, fragrant, fermented drink called ‘maca chicha’. In Peru even maca jam, pudding, and sodas are popular. The tuberous hypocotyls/roots have a tangy, sweet taste and an aroma similar to that of butterscotch.

Contemporarily, Leon (1964b) was the first in introducing an international audience to literature on Lepidium meyenii Walp. Since then, near 40 years have passed in which Lepidium meyenii Walp. has seen its fortunes change. During the tumultuous 1980s, cultivation of Lepidium meyenii Walp. in Peru precipitously declined. At the beginning of the 21st century, Lepidium meyenii Walp. cultivation and exportation experimented an explosive increasing and the ‘maca fever’ or ‘Andean Ginseng fever’ reached the Internet.

Nowadays, Lepidium meyenii Walp. has been growing in world popularity over the last several years due to several large marketing campaigns promoting its energizing, fertility enhancement, hormonal balancing, aphrodisiac, and, especially, enhanced sexual performance properties.

Modern companies are offering powdered dry hypocotyl/root and praising the “invigorating” effects of them. The dry matter is processed in order to prepare products in tabloid form or in capsules as a food supplement which are in demand because of their nutritional value and because of the supposition that they stimulate stamina (sexual and athletic), sexual appetite and increase fertility. Processing of Lepidium meyenii Walp. hypocotyl/root into 500-mg gelatin capsules may add several hundred US dollars of value to a kilogram of dry hypocotyl/root. This product is also offered as ‘Peruvian ginseng’, although Lepidium meyenii Walp. is not in the same family as ginseng.

In order to encourage its cultivation, a yearly Lepidium meyenii Walp. fair has been held since the Association of Maca Producers was established in the department of Pasco some years ago. At the present time, it is possible that Lepidium meyenii Walp. is not being grown to its full potential because of the lack of optimal soil in the production areas.

Basically, the value of Lepidium meyenii Walp. resides in its high nutritive value. Traditionally, the peasants of the zones where Lepidium meyenii Walp. is grown are used to cook 2 or 3 hypocotyls in a soup that they eat regularly.

In Peruvian herbal medicine, Lepidium meyenii Walp. is traditionally considered beneficial for/against: treatment of infertility, sexual impotence, reestablishes physical and intellectual capacity, anemia, chronic constipation, hair loosing (stimulates hair growing), nervousness, mental deficit, growing stages (children), immunostimulant, tuberculosis, menstrual disorders, menopause symptoms, stomach cancer, sterility (and other reproductive and sexual disorders), and to enhance memory.

Herbal medicine uses in the United States and abroad include increasing energy, stamina, and endurance in athletes, promoting mental clarity, treating male impotence, and helping with menstrual irregularities, female hormonal imbalances, menopause, and chronic fatigue syndrome. These uses are not confirmed.

The huge success reached by Lepidium meyenii Walp. has led to the experimentation of its cultivation in pots. A 200 g jar of Lepidium meyenii Walp. flour was sold for $15 in the United States (2001). Today, an excess in the production of Lepidium meyenii Walp. has led to a diminishing of its price.

Today, and because of the new investigations about this marvelous Andean plant, the edible part of Lepidium meyenii Walp., crushed and pulverized (‘maca flour’) is not only used encapsulated as diet supplement but also as a main ingredient for the elaboration of cookies, cakes, breads, candies, jams, soups, fruit juices, punches, cocktails, wines and drinks.

Some companies are selling standardized or concentrated extracts of chemicals found by them in Lepidium meyenii Walp. These chemicals and their biological effects have yet to be confirmed by independent research.

In the cultivation area, at least eight types of Lepidium meyenii Walp. are differentiated according to the colouring of the plant and the hypocotyl/root. In spite of the different colors, most Lepidium meyenii Walp. hypocotyls/roots are the same, phytochemically. Although there is no gene bank for this species, the Agricultural University of La Molina and the University of Pasco have collected genetic material. The largest collection of cultivated maca and wild species of Lepidium is maintained at the Universidad Nacional Agraria, La Molina, in Lima, Perú.

In 2002, a scandal took place in Peru when one of the main Lepidium meyenii Walp. marketers in the United States (and which funded much of the clinical research) patented the use of Lepidium meyenii Walp. in the United States (also pending in Europe and Australia) for fertility and aphrodisiac purposes.

This could prevent Lepidium meyenii Walp. extracts of Peruvian origin from being imported into the United States and abroad. This would be morally wrong and unacceptable for Peruvian Lepidium meyenii Walp. indigenous farmers from which the marketing companies and the whole world learned about Lepidium meyenii Walp. properties. Moreover, Peru is the world’s major exporter of Lepidium meyenii Walp.

The high nutritional value, its reputed medicinal properties, and its amenability for processing in a large number of products, including health supplements, makes this crop quite attractive for regions where other crops cannot be grown. However, there are still some things to improve related to Lepidium meyenii Walp. exploitation. For example, the current practice of drying the plants after harvesting needs improvement. Often it results in losses of 30-50% of the harvest due to rotting caused by overheating of foliage still present in the plants. Research is necessary to determine the optimal practices for root drying to minimize losses.