A slanted post about the quinoa craze set off a cascade of reproachful media warnings last week, telling consumers that by eating the grain-like vegetable they are hurting people in the Andean region where most of it is grown.
The article, by The Guardian’s Joanna Blythman, drew upon reports that quinoa’s popularity in the Western world has made it unaffordable in parts of Bolivia and Peru where it was once a dietary staple, raising concerns about malnutrition in some places. “In fact,” Blythman wrote, “the quinoa trade is yet another troubling example of a damaging north-south exchange, with well-intentioned health- and ethics-led consumers here unwittingly driving poverty there.”
And such was the simplistic story uncritically echoed by the likes of Andrew Sullivan and The Globe and Mail, which chose the censorious headline, “The more you love quinoa, the more you hurt Peruvians and Bolivians.”
But there’s more to it.
The shortsightedness of Blythman’s piece is surprising, given that it jumps off from a much more comprehensive one that The Guardian had published just two days earlier. That article, by Dan Collyns, addressed the concerns about malnutrition (and disputes over farming in the Andes, which have also become an issue), but added some important context.
Quinoa has enriched many Bolivians, and while the government reported in 2011 that local consumption had declined 34 percent, quinoa’s price, which had tripled, was only part of the reason for the drop. As incomes increased, many people simply switched to processed, Western-style foods. The primary worry is about children in poor parts of the country. Bolivia cut chronic malnutrition in children under five from 22.9 percent in 2005 to 16.5 percent in 2011, but it remains higher in rural, Andean regions, and there is a broad effort underway to resolve the problem. According to Collyns:
This year is the UN’s International Year of Quinoa as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation recognises the crop’s resilience, adaptability and its ‘potential contribution in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.’
… the Bolivian government - which like its neighbour Peru is heavily promoting quinoa nationally to combat malnutrition - insists Bolivians are eating more of the grain. Annual consumption per person has increased fourfold from 0.35kg to 1.11 kg in as many years “in spite of the high international prices,” Victor Hugo Vásquez, Bolivia’s vice-minister for rural development and agriculture, said.
Following Blythman’s piece, Mother Jones’s food reporter Tom Philpott attempted to put quinoa lovers at ease with a helpful article headlined, “Quinoa: Good, Evil, or Just Really Complicated?” And he took a fair jab at the condescending headline of Blythman’s piece—“Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa?”—by pointing out that it isn’t just vegans who enjoy it.
Not only did Blythman’s article encourage a bunch of equally blinkered copycat posts (and a concerned question on Quora), she also provoked ill-informed responses that rushed to the other side of judgment about the situation in the Andes. Criticizing what he called “the killer-quinoa meme,” The Globe and Mail’s Doug Saunders wrote:
The people of the Altiplano are indeed among the poorest in the Americas. But their economy is almost entirely agrarian. They are sellers - farmers or farm workers seeking the highest price and wage. The quinoa price rise is the greatest thing that has happened to them.
This was well thought out and asks some very good questions of which the answers would give very good insight on the effects of commodification of quinoa. Something very notable however is the globalization this commodification seems to stimulate. It's alarming that it has been said the local populations are noted for eating less quinoa while switching to western processed foods! Western processed foods have not benefited the west as far as health is concerned (which is concern enough). Is it fair that this culture of unsustainability and poor nutrition be exported globally? Better yet, who are the fat cats at the top of the 'food chain' and what do they eat? I sincerely doubt Cheetos.
#1 Posted by WestCoastGrow, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 04:04 PM
While the increasing popularity of quinoa in the short term has caused significant prices increases (with both positive and negative ramifications in local South American economies), longer term this situation should reverse. Higher prices will inevitably mean that more producers/farmers enter the market both locally and in other areas of the world. In addition, this creates tremendous incentive for local producers to increase output all of which will tend to reverse price trends for consumers.
#2 Posted by Chad Jacobs, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 06:36 PM
“That doesn’t mean we should stop eating quinoa; it just means we shouldn’t eat quinoa without thinking it through.”
"Thinking it through" requires analyzing data, such as listed out in the three bullet points, the data we don't have. It's hard to think something through without knowing what to think about it.
#3 Posted by Niko, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 08:25 PM