Quinoa on the Move: On the Opportunities and Exploitations of Climate Smart Agriculture

Keywords: Climate change, climate-smart agriculture, food justice
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 10

Abstract

In only the past several decades has quinoa – the so-called superfood that is now a climate-smart darling – gone from being endemic to the high Andes to a crop of global potential and importance. Quinoa responds to climate imperatives in two ways. First as a uniquely drought and stress tolerant crop, quinoa is well adapted to many of the conditions that global warming is expected to bring. Secondly, as a superlatively rich plant source of protein, quinoa is well-positioned to support consumption transitions away from meat and livestock – an important requirement for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and keeping warming within tolerable bounds. As quinoa has heretofore been developed through public institutions, relatively small private interests, and smallholder farmers, this creates opportunities to build climate-resilient pathways outside of the big five – and big ag – food crops. Yet, quinoa’s increasingly global movement also generates and reinforces extractive and exploitative dynamics than undermine the livelihoods of the Andean farmers and communities who have long conserved and husbanded quinoa. Employing decolonial and political ecological theories, this paper explores the opportunities and damage caused by quinoa’s move from maligned and endemic crop to global climate-smart technology.