Friday 25 January 2013

QuinWHAT...Quinoa

WE'RE GROING QUINOA!!!

There's been a lot of talk about Quinoa over the last few years (even though its an ancient grain first grown around the same time as the origins of corn and potatoes) describing its monumental health effects, to more recently about whether this boom in demand and commodification is helping or harming the local food system and the people that rely on it in the Andean countries, mainly Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

The common sense thought would be that this region is selling a product that is now increasing in price, therefore the region should be better off.  The problem with that thinking, is that not all the population are farmers, particularly independent family owned operations, creating a problem in two different ways.  1, the ultra poor non farmers can't grow or now afford what used to be a cheap local crop, that is one of the most nutritious crops in the world. 2, now that quinoa is a commodity, it attracts corporations, driven only by profits, will start buying up land and growing vast amounts of the crop, making it harder for smaller farmers to compete.  Out of region owned corporations' profit doesn't necessarily stay in the local economy and pays farm workers too little to afford the food they are helping to grow.

Regardless, I haven't been to this region in the world, and don't know how this economic issue is affected it; as I'm sure most if not all these reporters, and so called economic experts most likely haven't either, so I'm not going to say whether or not the food security of the region is increasing or decreasing.

What I do know is that there are many health benefits to this plant, and many advantages to growing this plant as a food crop.

Health benefits:

  • It has a high content of protein at 14%
    • But more importantly its a source of complete protein-containing all 9 amino acids
  • It is gluten free, so it makes for a good wheat flour and rice substitute
  • It is a good source of dietary fibre, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, and calcium
    • helping to detox your body, aid digestion, and fighting breast cancer, and diabetes

Agronomic advantages to farmers include:

  • It is a very hardy plant, able to withstand high day time temps and below freezing night time temps
  • It requires very little maintenance due to it tall growth form out-competing many weeds
  • It needs consistent moisture early in development a dry conditions during seed development (that sounds like Manitoba)
  • It has huge yield potential due to a large amounts of seed produced
  • It requires low amount of nutrients!
We hope to offer this ancient super food later in the summer as it takes about 100 days to mature and produce a harvest, look for it in later August at our farmers market stall in Osbourne, River Heights, and Arnes!

Read for yourself:


Background on Quinoa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/10352/2

Recipes

Is the Quinoa Boom hurting Andean Food Security?

http://goo.gl/mYFsz
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2013/01/17/business-quinoa-prices.html
http://www.globalnews.ca/reality+check/6442793720/story.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa
http://squinch.net/2013/01/18/can-i-have-my-quinoa-and-the-andean-farmer-eat-it-too/

Is the Quinoa Boom helping Andean Farmers?

http://goo.gl/TXiav
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/22/quinoa-bolivian-farmers-meat-eaters-hunger
http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/thread-821947-1-1.html

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