Quinoa

Quinoa consumption is booming in the United States and Europe. Between 2013 and 2019, leading exporter Peru saw its sales jump from less than 20 million to almost 50 million kilograms. Given quinoa's high nutritional value, US and European consumers believe the native Andean seed is a superfood. Its Indigenous origins only add to the appeal. Reporters and scholars dispute whether the quinoa boom has benefited or harmed Andean peasant producers. Quinoa: Food Politics and Agrarian Life in the Andean Highlands does not provide a definitive answer but rather adds further complexity about the effects on peasant producers and their responses.The book is divided into two parts. The first section (chapters 1–3) deals with agrarian reform, infrastructure, and development projects, and barely discusses quinoa. The same is true for chapter 7 in the second section, which addresses mining. The remaining three chapters focus on quinoa: chapter 4 is about quinoa production, chapter 5 addresses food politics, and chapter 6 focuses on women and quinoa consumption.Quinoa is more than a study of a commodity, as the subtitle explains; it addresses food politics and agrarian life in Huanoquite, a Quechua-speaking district in the Cuzco region primarily inhabited by peasants with small landholdings where quinoa is cultivated for export. Linda Seligmann's wealth of longitudinal data and deep relationships, based on 45 years of field research in the southern Andean highlands, provide unique insights such as Huanoquiteño women's knowledge and power, which derive from their roles as laborers and overseers of quinoa foodways. Photographs bring the people and landscapes to life. The outcome is a nuanced understanding of quinoa's role in Huanoquite as both a consumption item and an agricultural crop.The seed does not dominate peasant life in Huanoquite, nor has it done so historically. It is one of many things that farmers eat and produce. Rather than a mainstay of their diet or a centerpiece of their meals, quinoa accompanies a meal and is highlighted at ritual occasions as a soup, porridge, or drink. In Peru, it has historically been disparaged as a low-prestige Indigenous foodstuff; roughly 30 percent of households consume it. Campesinos in Huanoquite often prefer noodles and rice, and use money from their sale of quinoa to purchase these items. Similarly, Huanoquiteño peasants have not produced quinoa as a monocrop, preferring to sell some quinoa for export without sacrificing the many other crops that they grow for both consumption and sale. Moreover, most young Huanoquiteños do not want to be full-time farmers. Just as quinoa does not dominate Huanoquiteños’ lives, Seligmann does not focus exclusively on quinoa.The goal is to explore how Indigenous inhabitants of the Andean highlands are confronting and adapting to the “relentless demands of neoliberal globalization” caused by the quinoa boom along with the effects of land reform and development projects, infrastructure, and mining (p. 5). The quinoa boom clearly created opportunity. High prices (quadrupling in 2014) boosted Huanoquiteño peasants’ incomes, and quinoa's reputation as an Indigenous foodstuff helped vindicate and valorize the contributions of Andean Indigenous peoples. And yet, quinoa isn't a panacea. Cultivation requires a lot of time and energy. As Seligmann summarizes, “quinoa work was nasty” (p. 84). Also, the market is unstable: in 2015, the price plummeted by 40 percent. Fluctuations exacerbate inequalities among community members and foster individualism. International demand threatens food security by endangering the rich biodiversity of at least 3,000 landraces (varieties adapted to the natural and cultural environment). To explore these issues, Seligmann insightfully exposes the shortcomings of efforts by the Peruvian government and nongovernmental organizations to promote quinoa for export, and she highlights how Huanoquiteños adopt, adapt, and reject such efforts to meet their own goals and priorities both as a community and as individuals. In doing so, she emphasizes Huanoquiteños’ pragmatism: they take advantage of activities that provide greater economic autonomy and diminish systemic racism, and they adapt new knowledge, skills, and experiences to other uses.The emphasis on how quinoa production and consumption are part of larger systems in Huanoquite is a strength of the book, but Seligmann could have more clearly elucidated how quinoa fits with the other topics. Likewise, in her discussion of the potential environmental destruction caused by mining, Seligmann does not explicitly address the impact on quinoa. Moreover, her argument that Huanoquiteños’ pragmatic spirituality led them to join together to confront mining concessions conflicts with her finding that “more often, Huanoquiteños disagreed about whether or not a project would improve their lives” (p. 57). Such minor shortcomings should not deter readers. The book will appeal to people interested in superfoods, gastropolitics, and the Peruvian highlands. Anyone studying or involved in economic development projects and sustainability should read the book for its insights about the effects of neoliberal globalization on peasant farmers and how they have adapted

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• Materiality and the politics of seeds in the global expansion of quinoa

  Open Access•Fabiana Li•Food Culture & Society•2022

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