Quinoa isn't a cereal. It's a seed that is eaten like a grain, but is gluten-free and more easily digestible than corn, wheat, rye, millet and sorghum. And it can be substituted for rice in just about anything from soup to salad to pudding to bread. Quinoa grows in the San Luis Valley of Colorado.
Quinoa's rising popularity among First World foodies the wholesale price has jumped sevenfold since 2000 as global demand climbed has been a boon to the poor farmers here in the semiarid highlands where most of it grows. That boom has transformed the lives of the largely subsistence farmers who grow it, though it remains unclear whether the large-scale commercial cultivation sought by Bolivia's government is environmentally sustainable in the altiplain or even welcome by growers.
President Evo Morales' government has deemed quinoa a "strategic" foodstuff, essential to this poverty-afflicted nation's food security. It is promoting the grain and has included quinoa in a subsidized food parcel for pregnant women.Yet the higher prices quinoa is fetching have had an unanticipated impact where the grain is grown. Some local children are showing signs of malnutrition because their parents have substituted rice and noodles for quinoa in the family diet, said Walter Severo, president of a quinoa producer's group in southwest Bolivia. "Only 10 percent of it stays in Bolivia. The other 90 percent gets exported," says Rural Development Minister Nemecia Achacollo.
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This blog is written by Martin Little The Global Miller, published and supported by the GFMT Magazine from Perendale Publishers.
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