Quinoa threatens Andean ecosystems

We're all well versed on the concept of growing a business. You come up with an idea or product, refine it, take it to market, then market and advertise and grow your sales, etc. Ideally, you have more people wanting what you're selling and as demand goes up, you start making more.

While we talk about growing businesses typically as a good thing, treating food as a business can have dramatic repercussions on the environment. That's what's happening in the Andean region of Bolivia with quinoa.

If you don't know what quinoa (KEEN-wah) is, it's a seed full of protein and amino acids that can be prepared as a grain. Because it's actually a seed, it's gluten free. Protein + gluten free in a grain-like food? It's become a darling of several specialized dietary communities in the U.S.

That means the demand has gone up, which means more people are growing it. But it turns out that the traditional farming that until a few years ago was used by quinoa farmers in Bolivia doesn't scale. It's part of a well-honed cycle that involves llama dung as a natural fertilizer.

But…

"The scramble to grow more is prompting Bolivian farmers to abandon traditional land management practices, endangering the fragile ecosystem of the arid highlands, agronomists say."

Food doesn't scale well. It has major environmental repercussions. Look at the central United States for a good example of what over-farming does to a region. It's not pretty, and it's permanent.

To make more of it you need either more land to grow it on or more intensive practices to get a bigger yield out of the land. When you change from the traditional farming methods to a higher yield method, you inevitably harm the land. You're taking out more than what you put in and changing the chemical makeup. Not good.

Food fads like quinoa are a big culprit here. It's even possible to think of corn as one gigantic food fad in the United States, and you can see where we are in regard to excessive land use and destruction due to corn.

Quinoa is not a major threat to the international environment, that's not what I'm saying. But the promotion of quinoa as a brand and increased demand as a way of thinking about food is.

Food doesn't scale well. Yet another argument to keep food local.

Image courtesy of SaucyGlo via flickr