Peru Wild Shepherdess with Kate Humble

Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay!

Like that?

THEY LAUGH

Look at me. I'm covered.

In the most remote places on earth,

people depend on their animals for survival.

A few years ago, I moved to a farm in the Welsh hills.

I've become fascinated

by the ancient bond between shepherd and flock.

In Afghanistan, I looked back in time

and saw the origins of our relationship with livestock.

The admiration that I have for these people really knows no bounds.

Now, in Peru, I get to grips with a very different animal.

The alpaca.

There is sex going on in every direction.

Aqui, aqui!

Alpaca herding in Peru goes back thousands of years.

But today, the people of the Andes are at a crossroads

and must choose between tradition and progress.

What I'm going for is really what I go for when I pick a racehorse,

which is a pretty face and a nice bum.

I'm in the heartland of one of the greatest empires

the world has ever seen.

The Incas are famous for their architecture

and many of their buildings are still standing today.

But what few people know is just how skilled they were

as farmers and as herders.

They had this amazing livestock management system

which allowed them to build up

one of the finest herds that the world has ever known.

And in turn, produce some of the finest textiles.

Now, I'm heading from here right up into the high mountains

to some of the remote modern-day Peruvian herding communities

to find out what, if any, of that Inca heritage still remains.

The arrival of the Spanish conquistadors

ended the Inca civilisation 500 years ago.

Their modern-day descendants, the Quechua,

are known for making colourful clothing,

but how do their achievements compare

with those of their illustrious ancestors?

I'm heading to village called Chaulloqocha,

which produces some of the best textiles in this area.

It's half a day's drive away, high up into the mountains.

This was where corn was found, potatoes were found,

tobacco was found, tomatoes were found.

You can see it's just bursting with life.

The tribes of the Andes were as skilled with their animals

as they were with their crops.

But that was more than five centuries ago.

I want to find out what things are like today.

We're at 4,300 metres here, so quite high.

The tops of the mountains are well and truly shrouded in cloud.

It's January and the beginning of the wet season in Peru.

I'm amazed we've been able to drive this far.

But the final stage of the journey will be on foot.

My translator Urbano

has been to Chaulloqocha before and knows the way.

It feels like there are houses sort of all spread out.

Chaulloqocha village is not a compact place.

And here, this is the house where we are going now.

-This one here, right down...?

-Down there, yeah.

There are people at the wall expecting us.

I think they are waiting for us.

I can hear giggling.

KATE LAUGHS

THEY GIGGLE

Look at this. It's immaculately neat.

-Alhandrina.

-Alhandrina.

-Hola.

-Hola. Buenos dias.

I'm going to be living with Alhandrina, her son, Augustine,

and the rest of their extended family

in their two-roomed, thatched house.

The family depend on one crop, potatoes.

And on one animal, alpacas.

They are extraordinary-looking animals.

They look like they've been put together

from sort of different parts of different animals.

Alpacas, like llamas, are closely related to camels.

They were the foundation of the Inca empire

and they're still prized for their wool-like fibre.

How many alpacas do your family have?

Beautiful! How many days old is that?

One day only.

Are any more of the herd pregnant?

What is a baby alpaca called? Is it a lamb?

So it is literally little alpaca.

Alpaca cucha? Alpaca cucha.

But not all is well with the baby alpaca.

It turns out it's actually sick.

It's having trouble breathing,

but Augustine says there's nothing he can do to help it.

The family have very kindly lent me this room to sleep in.

It is a bedroom, but it's also clearly a storeroom.

Up here, there are huge amounts of sacks

which I think might all have alpaca fibre in.

Piles of clothes, cooking pots.

The bed is sort of squeezed in,

but er...it's sort of...

well, comfortable enough, if you like lumps.

But the thing I love most about this room is its unique decoration.

When I first came in here,

I made the mistake of looking up.

And in the rafters is a dead cat.

There's a slightly strange smell in here, it has to be said.

Night-night.

LAUGHTER

As well as their alpacas,

the family look after some smaller animals.

Guinea pigs sleep in holes by the fire

and have free run of the house during the day.

GIGGLING

They're sort of like a four-legged recycling unit.

Potatoes and vegetable peelings go to the guinea pigs.

There's some bad news.

The baby alpaca I saw yesterday didn't make it.

Augustine is going to butcher it straightaway.

We're so squeamish about this sort of thing in western society,

and yet here's a little girl aged three or four helping her father.

Nothing is wasted.

The hide will be sold and the meat eaten.

More than half of baby alpacas die here.

Foxes and birds of prey are a threat,

but the cold, wet weather is the biggest killer.

Augustine is going to shear some alpacas

in a special enclosure at the top of the ridge.

What I think we're doing is, er...

driving the alpacas up to a corral,

a sort of stone enclosure on the top of that mountain.

KATE LAUGHS

It's quite wet, it's quite slippery, and it's quite steep.

It's quite inspiring to see the whole family out here.

Grandmother, parents, children.

Way up there is a little girl who can't be more than six.

And I feel like I'm going to have to call an emergency helicopter in a minute.

It's exhausting. Come on, you lot.

The alpacas are driven into the corral, ready for shearing.

After our long climb, it's time for some refreshment, Andean style.

OK.

Why do you chew this?

It doesn't taste of much.

It sort of tastes of eating a hedge, really.

And now I'm probably not talking very well

because the whole of my mouth is tingling and my tongue's gone numb.

The male alpacas are taking full advantage of our coca break.

So when the alpacas make this noise...

KATE IMITATES AN ALPACA

..what does it mean?

OK.

They're happy. It's a content noise.

THEY LAUGH

There doesn't seem to be any kind of breeding system.

The alpacas are just left to get on with it.

Augustine has selected an animal for shearing.

Oh, it won't be that bad!

When you feel this fibre... Oh!

I got told off for referring to it as wool. It is fibre.

And it actually does feel very different

from the wool that you might get from a sheep.

Alpaca fibre is up to seven times warmer than sheep's wool.

Along with cashmere from goats,

it's one of the world's most prized natural threads.

I have never seen shearing done

with what is effectively a kitchen knife.

Alpaca fibre has been keeping the people of the Andes warm

for thousands of years.

The Incas were obsessed with it

and valued it more than gold and silver.

It's quite easy to see how the Incas built their empire on this, really.

It has the feel of absolute luxury.

There seems to be an enormous amount of fibre coming off

what is actually quite a small animal.

The family are going keep these fleeces

to make clothes and handicrafts.

But most of their fibre will be sold to collectors,

middlemen who buy as much fibre as they can

and sell it on to Peru's processing factories.

How many soles does the collector pay per pound?

An average-sized fleece like this

would earn Augustine and his wife Demesia about £8.

It doesn't sound very much for a lot of work.

Can you make enough money from your alpacas

to support the whole family?

Fibre from the family's herd of 60 animals

earns them £160 at most every year.

There are many mouths to feed and times are hard.

It's about 5:30 in the morning.

So we're just taking the sprouts off some potatoes.

There are guinea pigs running around and a cat by the fire.

It's a very cosy domestic scene.

Alhandrina makes a shocking discovery.

That one doesn't look so good!

Alhandrina was fattening this guinea pig up,

ready for a special meal.

I know we think of guinea pigs as pets,

but here, every now and then, they think,

"Right, it's time for a roast," and, er...kill one.

So they're sort of much-loved,

as you can see, and kept beautifully,

but very much as livestock, rather than as a pet.

LAUGHTER

The women are going to process the alpaca fibre.

After picking out dirt and other impurities,

the next task is to spin the individual hairs into a thread.

Alhandrina, did you teach all your daughters how to spin?

Alhandrina wants to teach me the basics.

I'll be punished if I make a mistake.

KATE LAUGHS

If I get it wrong?

So I spin like that?

This process transforms this kind of fluffy rope

into a much thinner thread

which can then be woven.

Mine's a little bit lumpy.

Keep it...? Keep pulling it?

THEY LAUGH

Raw fibre may not earn them very much,

but after the women have made it into textiles,

they can sell it for a great deal more.

I'm not doing very well, am I? You need six hands!

THEY LAUGH

Our snack of boiled potatoes is interrupted

when Augustine sees one of the alpacas

having trouble giving birth.

It's a large baby, and it looks like it's stuck.

The family only have a few adult alpacas,

so the mother is the priority.

With a lamb, I know what to do. With an alpaca, I don't.

All right, all right, all right.

Good girl, good girl.

Well done! Good girl.

Good girl, good girl. Good girl!

Good girl!

Good girl!

Wow! That's a lot of leg to come out.

So much bigger than lambs.

And actually, an alpaca isn't much bigger than a sheep.

SHOUTING

They're worried that she may have some sort of infection.

They have asked our director to pee in a bottle,

which he has duly done because he's a very well-behaved man.

And I think...someone is going to come... There they are.

They're going to use...

..the pee as an antiseptic.

People can't afford medicine up here,

so they make do with whatever they can get their hands on.

Augustine decides to name the baby James, after our director.

We leave him to bond with his mother and head back to the house.

It may have been a traumatic birth, but they both look OK.

The family are cooking a feast to welcome me into their home.

And there's a special treat on the menu.

So...I can safely say I've never eaten guinea pig before.

Mm!

And I can tell you, and I'm sorry to all of you

who've got a beloved pet guinea pig at home,

it's absolutely delicious!

It's kind of like dark chicken meat.

Yum!

All of those mothers fed up of cleaning out

your children's guinea pigs, cook 'em!

Oh! Delicioso!

LAUGHTER

Peru is modernising fast.

And even the most remote communities are beginning to change.

Basic sanitation was put in a year ago

and electricity will soon follow.

But this is a marginal existence.

Up to three million Peruvians

still live from hand to mouth up in the Andes.

We're going to check on the baby alpaca, James,

that was born yesterday.

Oh, there he is!

KATE LAUGHS

James looks in great shape.

Augustine thinks he's got a good chance of making it.

But despite such new additions,

Augustine has very little land,

so he's unable to increase the size of his herd.

Improvements in health care

means more of the village's children are reaching adulthood.

Each family's grazing land

is being divided into smaller and smaller plots,

which are getting more and more degraded.

Lack of space is not the only problem Augustine faces.

Are all your animals pure alpacas?

Llamas and alpacas can mate,

and their offspring's fibre is coarser

and less valuable than a pure-bred alpaca's.

Augustine has so few animals, they are inbred, too,

and more vulnerable to bad weather, disease and parasites.

Trying to make ends meet with just a few poor quality animals

is too much of a struggle for many young herders.

Thousands are leaving their villages,

preferring to take their chances in towns and cities.

The women gather on the hillside and set up their looms.

The Incas wove alpaca fibre

into some of the finest cloth the world has ever seen.

And there are echoes of their skill in Alhandrina's work.

I mean, don't those look like

absolute classic Inca designs?

Definitely an alpaca.

The family will keep a few of the scarves and shawls they make,

but they hope that most will eventually be sold on,

bringing in much-needed cash.

Do you worry that young people being born in the village here

will leave and go and work in towns,

that they will leave this traditional life?

I'm really enjoying getting to know this family.

But I sense that I've come to Chaulloqocha at a pivotal time,

after which nothing will ever be the same.

Not everyone in the village is struggling financially.

On the ridge above the family's house

lives Augustine's cousin, Tomas Puma.

Buenos dias.

Buenos dias. Buenos dias.

Me llamo Katia.

Me llamo Tomas.

Nice to meet you. Me gusta.

A few years ago, Tomas made the two-day journey to town

to try to get a better price for his fibre.

Tomas's fibre, like Augustine's,

was from llama alpaca hybrids.

The competition was from pure alpacas,

worth much more per pound.

Tomas's eyes were opened.

He became a collector himself,

buying fleeces from other herders and selling them on for a profit.

Business is good, and he's now made enough money

to start buying in better quality alpacas.

Tomas paid £300 for this pure-bred male.

Five times what a normal alpaca is worth.

It is like a completely different animal.

This feels almost like velvet.

And if I were an Inca princess,

I'd want to wear fibre from this one.

A llama alpaca hybrid's fibre

is worth only six soles, £1.50 per pound.

If you sell the fibre from this animal,

how many soles per pound for this fibre?

12 soles.

So double what the usual alpacas in this area get.

Tomas has a simple breeding system.

Castrating lower quality males

so only his very best get to mate.

It will take him a few years to improve his herd,

but his eye is fixed firmly on the future.

I wonder whether really what I'm witnessing

is the end of the kind of small family farm

and perhaps the beginning of people like Tomas

taking over land and taking over livestock.

And I kind of hate myself for saying this, I hate it,

it goes against everything I believe in.

I love the fact that people can still be self-sufficient,

still be connected to the land,

but I suspect that these small farms can't really exist any more,

that they have to be gobbled up

and become part of a much bigger, more commercial enterprise

for alpaca herding to survive here in Peru.

CHILDREN SING

Back at the house, there's an air of excitement.

Tonight is a special night for one of the girls.

I had a bit of a shock.

Augustine and Demesia asked if I would be godmother

to their second child,

who has the rather marvellous name of Mary the Miraculous.

And I've accepted.

And so there is a ceremony happening any moment now.

I'm not quite sure what it involves,

but it's something to do with hair cutting

and handing over quite a lot of money.

Who gets the haircut and who gets the money, I'm not entirely sure,

but...but I'm really delighted.

The family has asked one of our translators, Hector,

to be Mary's godfather.

-We have a big responsibility.

-Yes.

-And I am so happy, too.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Every lock of hair earns a donation from a godparent

or one of the family.

It doesn't take long before little Mary

is as shorn as one of her father's alpacas.

Alhandrina wants to sell some fibre.

She's sent a message to her nephew, Tomas, to come and visit.

THEY LAUGH

Alhandrina has made £23.

But if the fibre was better quality,

she could have earned twice as much.

It's clear that Augustine and Demesia face many challenges.

What do they think the future holds for their family?

They have two options.

Stay and improve their alpaca herd

or look for work in a town.

With such a low income,

it's going to be a struggle to get things started.

But Augustine has one thing in his favour.

A strong, skilled family.

With their support, he might just be able to make a go of it.

It's time for me to leave.

Augustine is determined to make more money from his fibre.

But I want to know what he's up against,

so I'm going to check out the competition.

It doesn't take long

before dirt tracks give way to Tarmac roads.

In one minute, you can be in a community

that feels completely cut off from the outside world,

where there's no electricity,

people are really living on potatoes and guinea pig,

and within an hour, be in quite a sophisticated town.

Tarmacked roads, electricity, internet.

Peru has one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

Industry is booming and hundreds of thousands of people

are leaving villages like Chaulloqocha every year

to work in towns and cities.

Most end up in low-paid, menial jobs, living in shanty towns.

If Augustine and Demesia were to leave their mountain home,

this is the kind of life they could expect.

We're heading back up into the Andes,

but this is a very different landscape.

There are no villages or potato fields.

Instead, we seem to be driving through one great big ranch.

We're at nearly 5,000 metres here

and I'm going to meet a man who is right at the top of his game.

In this area of Peru,

he probably has one of the finest herds of alpacas.

-Buenos dias, Hugo.

-Buenos dias.

How are you? Todo bien?

-Buenos dias. Todo bien.

-Good, good.

The animals in Chaulloqocha were a hotchpotch of different colours,

sizes and breeds.

But Hugo Yucra's are like a herd of clones.

These are all Suri alpacas.

A rare breed that produces the finest fibre.

It's like silk, isn't it?

It's so fine and...

Oh, it's just... It's beautiful, isn't it?

I love my family in Chaulloqocha, but, er...

..the quality of their fibre just simply doesn't come close.

While Tomas spends a few hundred pounds on new blood,

Hugo is prepared to invest thousands.

These are all females.

The males are kept in a different area of the ranch.

This morning, Hugo wants to separate his best animals.

This one here? Oh, yeah.

How difficult can it be to spot a thoroughbred from a second-rater?

Oh! Hugo, I like that one.

That's the one!

Good catch. What do you think? Good?

Right, next one.

This one. That's the one!

Bueno?

I could get used to this!

What I'm going for is really what I go for when I pick a racehorse,

which is a pretty face and a nice bum.

Although in this case, I'm also looking at the hairstyle.

What do you think of this one? Is it OK?

So not so good.

You see? I thought I was getting the hang of it.

They might grow lovely wool that's turned into luxury items,

but there's a filthy side to alpacas.

And that's when they're in a bad mood

or they disagree with what you're doing to them...

Sorry!

KATE LAUGHS

..they spit at you.

And that's exactly what this one's doing to me.

And it's not just... Stop it!

Look at me. I'm covered in basically...

That's come from the depths of their bowels.

Believe me, it stinks.

This isn't just a kind of little gob like some yob on a Saturday night,

this is a full-blown "I hate your guts." Come on. No!

She needs some manners taught to her, that one.

We've separated off all of Hugo's top females.

Now we need to count the rest of the herd.

Bear with me. This could all go horribly wrong.

Do I count in Spanish...or English?

166.

You made it 164, I made 163.

THEY LAUGH

Close.

Let's go with his. That makes you richer!

THEY LAUGH

The top females are much easier to keep track of.

Thirteen that will be mated with the best males at the end of the month.

Outside of the corral, Hugo's alpacas are given free range.

He owns more than 3,000 animals,

spread out over 3,000 hectares.

So there's no overcrowding

or overgrazing on this ranch.

We drive higher up into the mountains to Hugo's farmhouse.

His wife and young children live in town a few hours away.

But Hugo spends much of his time up here.

He may be a successful breeder,

but he lives without running water,

electricity or any home comforts.

Hugo very kindly has said that we can use this room.

And as you can see, we've got a table and chairs set up,

so me and all the crew are eating in here.

And come night-time, the table will be cleared away

and we'll all be sleeping in here, as well.

No dead cats hanging from the rafters.

Although I hate to say it,

I think there might be something dead in here.

I can certainly smell something not too savoury.

(It'll be fine.

(That's what you say when you're being stoic.)

Hugo doesn't come from a herding background.

His father was a trader

who bought alpaca fleeces from highland villages.

As a boy, Hugo travelled with him

and began to dream of one day having a herd of his own.

He realised early on that quality of fibre is everything.

And he now goes to extreme lengths to get it.

Hugo puts plastic capes on his top alpacas

to protect their fibre from the elements.

This one doesn't seem very happy with its new look.

SQUEALING

They do seem to be very highly strung.

Kind of constantly making a fuss about something.

Everything's a drama and I'm going to scream the place down

until someone either leaves me alone

or does what I want them to do.

They're kind of like spoilt children.

And when they get really angry, they then just sit down.

It's like having a tantrum.

..It's not so bad.

They're putting a nice coat on you. Be quiet.

Yeah, yeah.

Hugo's animals may be some of the best in southern Peru,

but amazingly, even they cannot match the quality of fibre

that has been found in Inca burial sites.

There's some bad weather blowing in,

so I head for my sleeping bag and an early night.

Although it was freezing cold outside, it was quite warm in here.

Mud walls obviously work quite well with insulation.

I did wear absolutely every item of clothing that I'm wearing now.

Hugo thought it would snow last night,

so he moved the baby alpacas and their mums

into a specially built nursery.

But shelter's not the only thing he gives them.

What is this drink you're giving them?

Iodine stops her navel getting infected.

And she'll also be vaccinated against disease and parasites.

Newborns are very vulnerable to the cold,

so Hugo's giving this one some extra protection.

A-ha!

I tell you, I wouldn't have minded one of those capes last night.

Bueno!

In Chaulloqocha, as many as six out of ten of babies don't make it.

Hugo's care and attention means half as many die here,

even though conditions are harsher.

His herd is growing.

And their fleeces are becoming famous throughout southern Peru.

It's clear from meeting Hugo that he has his sights set high,

but what's also clear is the great gap

between what Hugo is doing

and what Tomas and Augustine are able to do.

Hugo and Augustine may be worlds apart,

but their fibre ends up in the same place, Peru's processing factories.

And that's where I'm going now.

We're going to leave the mountains and the farms,

head for the big city of Arequipa,

which is really where everything happens.

Where all the decisions, the key decisions are made.

Strategically located between the herders in the mountains

and the coastal ports,

Arequipa is the world capital of the alpaca industry.

The streets are lined with shops selling alpaca clothing.

And the industrial parks are busy seven days a week

turning alpaca fibre into products for global export.

The Michell Corporation

is the largest alpaca processor in the world.

Every year, up to five million tonnes of fibre

is driven down to this warehouse

from collection centres in the Andes.

Each of these bags are what we call in Spanish "quintal".

-It means 100 pounds.

-Right.

-46.2 kilos.

CEO Derek Michell is taking me on a whistle-stop tour

to show me how this raw material

is transformed into top quality yarns and textiles.

Impurities, tangled fibres

and coarse hairs are removed at every stage.

-So it's getting cleaner and cleaner all the time.

-That's right.

I wish I'd known, I'd have brought all my laundry with me.

That would be good, that would be good.

Covering an area of about 15 football pitches,

it's a huge operation.

I think Augustine and Alhandrina would be amazed

that their little bag of fibre

ends up in a place like this.

This is the beginning of the spinning factory.

And this is what comes out.

Suddenly, that's looking almost more recognisable as a yarn.

As a yarn.

The machines are mimicking

what people have been doing by hand for thousands of years.

So what the ladies used to do by stretching and twisting,

is what this machine is doing.

-That's what it's doing.

-Exactly.

Yarns are woven into textiles

and textiles are then sewn into garments.

-I've got a very small head.

-It doesn't look bad.

That's called a chullo. That's a Peruvian chullo.

-Right.

-There you go.

-Yeah, adorable.

-It doesn't look that bad.

It's kind of amazing that up in Chaulloqocha,

you've got somebody shearing their alpaca with a kitchen knife...

-Exactly.

-..and it could end up looking like this.

That's right, yeah.

Peru makes the majority of the world's alpaca products.

And a large proportion goes to China.

Being such a big consumer, it's no surprise

that China wants to start producing its own alpaca fibre.

We've been hearing a lot that already there are some alpacas in China.

And that's something that does worry us as a business.

If they were to grow in animals big time,

we could start winding down somehow in Peru.

As well as China, Australia, New Zealand and the USA

have their own top quality herds.

Peru's position as the number one alpaca producer

is by no means certain.

We're back where we started, the sorting room.

These ladies grade all the fibre that passes through the warehouse

using skills handed down from generation to generation.

-This is really the kind of key process.

-Absolutely.

If it wasn't for these ladies,

all the alpaca would be mixed into one single lot

-and shipped out as an average fibre.

-Right.

The women sort the fibre according to its thickness,

which is measured in millionths of a metre, or microns.

The finest fibre will be made into clothing,

the coarsest into carpets.

The whole basis of it is here.

If these ladies would not know how to sort,

there's just no machine that could even come close to it.

So Maria is the highest paid woman in Peru?

Oh, she's definitely the highest paid woman.

At least she's the most appreciated, let me tell you that!

THEY LAUGH

OK, I've got a little test for you.

This is some of the fibre Augustine sheared up in Chaulloqocha.

Is it worth anything to a processor like Derek?

It's a decent fleece.

There'll be parts which are between 20 and 22 microns.

So that's pretty good quality, really.

22 microns is four times finer than a human hair.

It's not top of the range, but it's certainly good enough

for a scarf or a shawl.

-I sort of expected you to rubbish this fibre.

-No, no.

So what you're telling me is that the traditional herders

still produce product that you can use and has a value.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

And would you be able to say roughly the percentage of fibre you process

that comes from the communities compared to the breeders?

I mean...

Oh! It would be 95% to 5% probably.

So, you need communities like Chaulloqocha?

-Of course we do!

-They're vital to you.

Of course we need their fibre. Absolutely.

We would like them to have a better fibre, that's the only thing.

To encourage herders to improve their animals,

Derek has started buying directly from them,

cutting out middlemen and paying a premium for fine fibre.

You've cheered me up. I want to run back up the hill to Chaulloqocha

and tell them, "This is really good!"

This is what we're trying to do.

We're really trying to get as much penetration

between the farmer and the industry

to make sure that we give the right messages,

that they receive the right messages

and hopefully with that, keep the farming of animals going.

Because if they don't...

We're out of business, we're out of business.

Every single person who works in this is gone.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep.

It's such a relief to be told that Augustine's fibre has a value.

But I now realise that the stakes are even higher than I'd imagined

and the whole of Peru's alpaca industry is on a knife edge.

But there is hope.

Before I leave Peru, Derek wants me to visit Mallkini Ranch,

the Michell Company's alpaca research centre.

Manager Moises Asparrin has one objective,

to improve Peru's alpaca herd as quickly as possible.

Breeding is therefore top of the agenda.

The females that Moises said are ready for breeding

have been brought into their own private little boudoirs.

And the alpacas that are running around me now are all males

and they've got numbers on that will correspond to their females.

And so number 10 here is looking for his number 10 female.

I've found number 10's girlfriend

and I'm going to try and get him to go there.

Aqui, aqui!

Oh, there we go! There you go!

Oh, now, look at that! It's love at first sight.

The noise an alpaca male makes during mating is known as orgling.

Apparently, it encourages the female to ovulate,

helping to ensure conception.

Moises wants to produce babies with the finest fibre.

But this system will also help him

to weed out males that don't meet the mark.

Now, it's not looking like the greatest romance in the world

in number 20's pen.

Both of them are looking studiously uninterested in each other.

But apparently, according to Moises,

it's not that they don't like each another,

it's because the male has got performance anxiety,

so turn away, please.

There are almost 4,000 alpacas here,

but each animal is carefully monitored

and daily reports are fed into a database.

Moises is following in the footsteps of the Incas,

whose highly organised, large-scale herding system

was fundamental to their success.

But there's one thing Moises has access to which the Incas did not.

The latest breeding techniques.

These guys are up against really a race against time.

They want to improve the alpaca herds.

They want Peru to be back on the map

of producing some of the finest alpaca fibre in the world.

And to do that, artificial insemination

is going to be a crucial tool in their box.

Artificial insemination enables the genes of the very best animals

to be passed on with clinical efficiency.

It's been used commercially in sheep and other livestock for many years,

but it's still being tried out with alpacas.

The first step is to see

whether the potential mothers are ready to breed.

Waiting patiently outside is a male alpaca.

Now, he's castrated, so he can't get any of these females pregnant,

but what he can do is get them all roused up and excited.

If the female accepts the male's advances,

she's injected with a hormone to make sure she ovulates.

If she refuses him, she'll go back into the herd.

Crikey! She was very receptive.

There's a terrible expression in English, which is "gagging for it".

Professor Willy Vivanco

is a world-renowned animal reproduction expert.

He's spent much of his career working with sheep

and he's now trying to perfect the technique with alpacas.

Just when he's getting to the fun part, you pull him off.

You're a hard man!

We just use him for the very short space.

Enough to do the stimulation

and then he has to go to another female and so on,

so he never ejaculates actually.

-No. No. He just fluffs.

-Exactly.

KATE LAUGHS

The mothers are ready.

Now for the fathers.

Once again, there's very little romance involved.

-This is the artificial vagina.

-Mm-hm.

But the alpacas will take up to 20 minutes copulating,

so we use the electrical blanket to keep it warm.

The male will be fooled into thinking he's inside a female

and will ejaculate into a glass tube.

One of Mallkini's finest males

is introduced to some receptive females.

The switch is made at the crucial moment.

Now we have to wait. And wait.

Because that's what a female alpaca has to do.

The now-familiar sound of orgling reverberates around the room.

With ruminants like the bull

or the male goat or the ram,

-it's seconds.

-Right.

They get stimulated and then they jump

and ejaculate just in one thrust.

He's standing up. Is that...?

That's why I said to you that

these guys are not on the job straight.

But they're tired and they...

They want to get up, they go and get a beer,

they come back, they check the newspaper.

THEY LAUGH

Never ever fall for an alpaca.

He's done it?

He's done it? OK. Let's bring it down.

-Straight to the lab?

-Straight to the lab.

After so much effort, I have to say,

the result is a bit of an anticlimax.

Is that it?

You wait a long time for not very much.

The semen is diluted to make it go further.

In this way, a top male can father many more babies in a year

than by natural mating.

The first female is blindfolded in a rather rudimentary way

to stop her panicking and spitting during the insemination.

There is something fairly discomforting, I suppose,

about seeing an alpaca with a plastic bag on its head.

It's one of those things, you know,

you weigh up discomfort to an animal,

certainly not cruelty, but discomfort,

but if this going to make the difference to the species

and to the future of the alpaca fibre industry,

then perhaps it's a short bit of discomfort

that will have much longer-term benefits.

Willy is trying out two ways of insemination.

This is the simplest, where the semen is squirted into her cervix

using, well, something rather like a turkey baster.

That's the whole thing done.

She's going to feel cheated by that.

It should have taken at least 25 minutes.

The next method is more complicated,

so this animal has been given a local anaesthetic.

The semen is injected directly into her uterus.

The team will compare the effectiveness of each procedure.

It really is early days.

The last time they tried this, they only had a 25% success rate.

Moises is convinced that once perfected,

this will eventually help to save alpaca herding

in Peru's poorest villages.

Though Augustine couldn't afford a breeding male,

he could afford the semen from one.

But the very best alpacas can fetch tens of thousands of pounds

on the global market.

And I find it hard to believe that all of this

is being done only for the good of Peru.

Mallkini is a business. It's funded by a business.

It has to make money.

Do you really think this can be a reality?

The Michell Corporation is not financing Mallkini

out of the goodness of its heart.

It needs Augustine and the tens of thousands

of small herders like him to thrive, not fail.

But what about Augustine's biggest problem, the lack of good pasture?

Moises has been working on that, too.

This field has been planted with a mix of special grass

and alfalfa, a fast-growing, pea-like plant.

OK.

This field can support fifteen times as many alpacas as normal pasture.

Though it costs £30 a year to plant,

it would transform the fortunes of Augustine and other small herders.

Alfalfa is particularly good for pregnant and nursing mothers.

We seem to have walked into a mini baby boom.

Though I still find it incredible that no-one in Peru

has been able to match the Inca herders,

I get the feeling it's only a matter of time

before Moises surpasses even their achievements.

Mallkini is an impressive set-up.

But can it improve things quickly enough

to help families like Augustine's?

It's clear that Peru has the knowledge,

has the expertise and has the animals

to continue to be THE major player

in the alpaca industry throughout the world.

But I think Peru needs Augustine and Demesia to be productive.

It doesn't need its cities to swell any more,

it needs the high Andes to be able to participate

in a real and tangible way

in an industry that they are rightly and should be proud of.

As Peru fights to preserve the future of its alpaca industry,

I hope it manages to keep hold of some of its traditions.

Preserving the best of its old ways

while embracing much-needed new ones, too.

They seem quite keen to get off the truck!

Next time, I travel to the Australian outback

and experience shepherding on an epic scale.

There's some here, Bob, just on the right.

And I see the science of herding being taken to a whole new level.

Have I just made a sheep?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd