At high altitude which is 8000 to 15,000 feet in altitude which is where most Tibetans live Barley can grow at the lower altitudes but above 8000 feet which isn't true of most other crops. I'm not sure how high it can actually grow at this point. I looked it up and found an article that I will share after my writing finishes on this article.
Basically, they roast barley in it's natural form before they grind it into something resembling wheat flour. Then they carry it in a cloth bag around their necks under their shirts while walking long distances. Then when they get to houses or villages they buy some Yak butter and they almost always carry a wooden bowl for mixing Tsampa with Yak Butter.
So, what we are talking about here is a staple for traveling on foot through the Himalayas simply because roads don't exist most places in the Himalayas except for high mountain trails with suspension bridges. The reason roads don't exist much in the Himalayas is that the monsoons would wash them away yearly if they weren't up high in the hills or mountains. All lower roads would wash away in the monsoons. So, people often walk miles between villages carrying their cloth bag of Tsampa and a wooden bowl sort of like hikers in the U.S. would carry Granola to fortify them on long hikes or trekking.
When you mix Tsampa with Yak Butter or Dzo Butter (a Dzo is a yak and a Water buffalo mixture I believe). When you mix Tsampa (Barley roasted powder) and butter you get something that reminds me a little of thick peanut butter. This is very nourishing and a way to keep warm at high altitude much like Granola is here in the U.S. in the Rockies and Sierras and other mountain ranges in the U.S.
Note: many thousands or millions of Tibetans have now left Tibet and live in Nepal and northern India, especially in Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama lives who is the holy man of the Tibetan Buddhists. He is sort of like the Pope of the Tibetans.
Here is the article I found about growing barley in the Himalayas:
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-altitude/want-to-live-on-the-roof-of-the-world-grow-barley-idUSKCN0J42F320141120
Want to live on the 'roof of the world'? Grow barley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Tibetan Plateau, the harsh Asian domain known as the ‘roof of the world,’ would not seem an ideal place for people to call home thanks to its extreme altitude, frigid temperatures, relentless winds and low-oxygen conditions.
When people did succeed in colonizing this remote land, it was only after they discovered how to feed themselves year-round with cold-hardy crops like barley brought to the region from far away, scientists said on Thursday.
They described 53 archeological sites in Qinghai province in northwestern China where they found remnants of rustic structures, hearths, pottery, animal bones, cereal grains and other evidence of human habitation from 5,600 feet to 11,000 feet above sea level (1,700 to 3,400 meters).
They found signs of periodic human presence dating to the Ice Age at least 20,000 years ago. There were settlements at lower altitudes by 5,200 years ago, mainly in the valleys of the upper Yellow River, with inhabitants relying on millet, a frost-sensitive crop unsuited for the higher altitudes.
Permanent settlements with agriculture and livestock were established about 3,600 years ago at high altitudes - above 9,800 feet (3,000 meters) - after barley was introduced to the region.
“They could quite plausibly be the earliest sustained settlements in the world at this altitude,” said University of Cambridge archaeologist Martin Jones, one of the researchers.
Unlike millet, barley flourishes even in the conditions of the Tibetan Plateau’s high altitudes.
“As barley is frost hardy and cold tolerant, it grows very well on the Tibetan Plateau even today. Therefore, barley agriculture could provide people enough - and sustained - food supplies even during wintertime,” added archaeologist Dongju Zhang of Lanzhou University, another of the researchers.
Barley was the main high-elevation crop, with wheat grown as well. Neither was native crop to the region. They were domesticated in the so-called Fertile Crescent of the ancient Near East thousands of years earlier and were introduced to this area about 4,000 years ago, the researchers said.
Livestock also were important in sustaining the settlements. The researchers said domesticated sheep arrived at about the same time as barley and wheat.
Jones said these people not only conquered the extreme altitude raising livestock and growing crops, but their expansion into the higher, colder heights occurred as the temperatures on continent were becoming colder.
The research was published in the journal Science.
Reporting by Will Dunham; editing by Andrew Hay
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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