Calling for a reappraisal of the impact of quinoa expansion on agricultural sustainability in the Andean highlands

Abstract

The debate on the environmental and social sustentainability of quinoa in its area of major world production (southern highlands of Bolivia) revived with the acceptance by the United Nations of the Bolivian proposal to declare in 2013 as the Year of the Quinoa. Public debate focused on local impacts of quinoa expansion in the Southern highlands of Bolivia, denouncing several negative impacts of quinoa culture such as land degradation, socioeconomic disrupts and biodiversity loss. However, the global or at least the international implications of the expanding quinoa market were less debated and often in caricature, varying between culpability and ingenuity among consumers, while Andean producers were described as trapped by poverty or short sighted greed. If researchers are to make a relevant contribution to the debate on the impact of quinoa expansion on the social and environmental sustainability of the Andean agriculture, is it necessary to re-evaluate present knowledge and ignorance about local Andean production systems integrated with links at the global scales, taking into account local-global interactions.In the present paper are revisited some major ill-founded assertions commonly expressed in this debate and three lines of arguments are used to support the need for a more cautious and ethical approach to quinoa related issues. Key words: debate, biodiversity, socioecological. RESUMEN

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.): An Overview of the Potentials of the “Golden Grain” and Socio-Economic and Environmental Aspects of Its Cultivation and Marketization

“…pointed at the need to prevent the loss of biodiversity due to increasing market demand and pressure for homogenized seeds [61]. On the other hand, Winkel calls out the alarming voices raised about endangered biodiversity and highlights studies which "suggest that the booming commercial production in the southern highlands of Bolivia has not altered its biodiversity" [62] (pp. [96][97].…”

“…The indigenous communities' connection to quinoa is often depicted with preservation and safeguarding, instead of creation, strategically undermining the claim for ownership over quinoa by people from the Andes, or as McDonell puts it: "If the IYQ had thanked the Andean indigenous peoples for inventing quinoa rather than merely preserving it "in its natural state," this framing would support the case, being made by Bolivia, that Andean nations should have some sort of ownership of quinoa germplasm" [87] (p. 81). In the aftermath of the International Year of Quinoa, ethical considerations by Winkel et al have been raised as well, calling for a need for further analysis, namely "commercial interests, seed property rights and unbalanced competition between farmers from southern and northern countries" [62] (p. 98). McDonell raises similar questions regarding unbalanced competition and calls for appropriate institutional mechanisms when it comes to traditional food commercialization [87].…”

Determinación de los niveles de resiliencia/vulnerabilidad en iniciativas de agroecología urbana en el suroeste andaluz

“…Las iniciativas estudiadas se aproximan a los objetivos para la creación de soberanía alimentaria en huertas urbanas propuestos por Soler (2010): reforzando la organización vecinal, favoreciendo el tejido comunitario a partir del acercamiento entre productor y consumidor y sirviéndose de espacios de participación colectiva; favoreciendo la biodiversidad funcional del agroecosistema e incorporando nuevos espacios verdes en el diseño de las ciudades y sus periferias. Lo anterior refuerza la importancia de cómo concebir la naturaleza de estos espacios (peri) urbanos en el sentido de entenderlos, de acuerdo con Classens (2015), como un elemento constitutivo de lo (peri)urbano y no, necesariamente, bajo parámetros netamente de eficiencia productiva (Codyre et al 2015), ya que la sustentabilidad de estas lo determinan los propios agentes involucrados (Winkler et al 2014). La producción de alimentos, bajo la perspectiva de la agroecología orientada a una soberanía alimentaria, sigue siendo un punto en debate en términos de su alcance y composición en la dieta, por lo que futuros estudios deberían profundizar en ello.…”

Panarchy of an indigenous agroecosystem in the globalized market: The quinoa production in the Bolivian Altiplano

“…This would be opposite to the benefits expected from low-input organic agriculture in rural societies cultivating communal land supposedly governed by ancestral rules and traditional ecological knowledge. Researchers and journalists have blamed local growers for short-sightedness and individualism, but often with ill-founded arguments (Jacobsen, 2011;Winkel et al, 2012Winkel et al, , 2014. In fact, Bolivian farmers and decision makers are well aware of the rising vulnerability of their agroecosystem (Kerssen, 2015).…”