Sun, Nov 30, 2014 page14

• Bolivia, Peru feud over booming ‘superfood’ quinoa

  A decade ago, 90% of quinoa came from small-scale organic farms in Bolivia, but hunger in the West for the grain has seen the crop grown so much in Peru, it is headed to be the No. 1 producer

  • By Carlos Valdez and Frank Bajak / AP, LA PAZ
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  Booming international demand for quinoa is fueling an increasingly bitter commercial feud between Bolivia and Peru, the two main producers of the Andean “superfood.” The fight pits hardscrabble, traditional organic growers based mostly in Bolivia’s semi-arid highlands against upstart Peruvian agribusinesses concentrated on the Pacific coast that include heavy pesticide users. Peru is about to overtake Bolivia as the top exporter, worrying Bolivians about their ability to compete.

  As Peru boosts production of cheaper factory-farmed quinoa, the grain is increasingly being smuggled into landlocked Bolivia to be mixed with — and sometimes sold as — organic quinoa, Bolivia’s specialty growers and government officials say.

  “They are trying to force us to lower prices,” said Reynaldo Mamani, who along with about 500 other Bolivian quinoa farmers marched on the presidential palace on Nov. 17 to demand that Bolivian President Evo Morales halt the “invasion” of Peruvian quinoa.

  

  A quinoa plant flowers in a field in Cotimbora, Bolivia, on Nov. 8.

  Photo: AFP

  A week earlier, Bolivian authorities took 23 tonnes of Peruvian quinoa seized at a checkpoint near the border, dumped it into a ditch, soaked it with diesel and burned it in front of TV crews — an extreme measure in a country where nearly half the people are poor and about one in five toddlers suffers from malnutrition.

  Peru and Bolivia both made quinoa — which scientists consider as nutritious as mother’s milk — an export priority even before the UN declared last year as International Quinoa Year. Although marketed as a grain, quinoa is actually a seed from the goosefoot plant family.

  A decade ago, Peru accounted for just 6 percent of global sales, while Bolivia had 90 percent, according to UN figures. However, Peru is on track to supplant Bolivia this year as the top exporter, having doubled production to 95,000 metric tonnes since last year amid strong demand from the US and Europe.

  Peru’s higher output stems from greater use of insecticides and chemical fertilizers as agribusiness steps up cultivation in coastal valleys, where there are two harvests a year compared to one in the highlands.

  “It is a smaller grain and we know there is very little organic in Peru,” said Eduard Rollet, president of Alter Eco, a “fair trade” company that buys quinoa directly from organic Bolivian farmers.

  Yet with quinoa prices increasing eight-fold in five years, “in the US a lot of buyers from supermarkets are looking at legally mixing quinoa from Peru and quinoa from Bolivia as a way to reduce price,” Rollet said.

  Organic quinoa now fetches up to US$10 a pound (0.45kg) retail in the US, with the non-organic seed available for as much as half that price.

  Yet for producers, the wholesale price for organic quinoa has dropped from a peak of a little more than US$8,000 per metric tonne early this year to about US$6,000, Rollet said. Non-organic quinoa fetches considerably less.

  “There is so much supply on the market because of Peru’s big production that prices simply must go down,” said Pablo Laguna, a Bolivian anthropologist and quinoa expert. “The price downturn is irreversible.”

  That worries Bolivia’s small-scale quinoa farmers, who cannot produce as cheaply as their Peruvian competitors.

  Mamani grows the prized, larger-seeded reddish-purple royal quinoa at altitudes of nearly 3,650m using llama manure as fertilizer.

  He complains that a 50kg sack that he could sell for US$347 last year now fetches just US$260.

  “That simply no longer covers my costs,” said Mamani, who uses pesticides, but no chemical fertilizers.

  Global warming is also hurting production as highlands weather becomes more erratic, with more frequent frosts and dry spells.

  Sergio Nunez de Arco, CEO of Andean Naturals, a US importer of quinoa, said prices for Peru’s white-seed coastal “sweet” quinoa have been dropping consistently.

  The coastal quinoa is more apt to be tainted by pesticide overuse because it grows on land previously occupied by other crops.

  “Bugs love quinoa,” he said. “That’s one reason why it does so well in the highlands, where there are fewer pests.”

  The US Food and Drug Administration rejects some shipments of quinoa from Andean countries due to high pesticide residues.

  Before foreign demand soared, nearly all quinoa was organic because most people who farmed it were poor.

  If Bolivians want to compete with Peru, many believe they need more government backing in certifying the organic product’s purity.

  “It needs to demonstrate scientifically that it is the best, because it’s difficult to tell by taste,” Laguna said.
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