By Kyle Navis, MCC Bolivia
With the rising price of quinoa a reality and concerns over its effects on the producing countries’ capacity to provide affordable access for domestic consumers, I decided to sit down and talk with MCC Bolivia colleague, Patrocinio Garvizu, a Bolivian agronomist with decades of experience in agriculture and the coordinator of the Integral Rural Development Program.
Farmers, Middlemen and State Policy
One of the main concerns in any agricultural production setting is how farmers interact with middlemen, how farmers obtain seeds, and how they sell their produce. Garvizu noted that here in Bolivia, if quinoa is being produced specifically for an export market, farmers will enter into a contract with a middleman to get a guaranteed price up to a certain amount of quinoa. This is important because contracts protect farmers from the fluctuations of global price swings, and signing a contract helps them to plan out their own growth and investments. On the other hand, when quinoa is produced for the domestic market, farmers will take their quinoa to local middlemen for distribution.
Another important item to note is that the toxin coating quinoa (which comes off with a quick rinse before cooking) is a natural preservative that deters pests and makes it easy to store for long periods of time. Again, this is a boon for farmers who are not under contract because it allows them to potentially store their harvest until times of the year when the price has risen.
When I asked Garvizu what he thought of the justice aspect of this issue, he said that there should always be a balance. In his experience, the small-scale producer will always choose getting a better price for his/her products over keeping them to eat. Thus from a public health perspective it is the responsibility of the government to balance out the nutritional needs of the people with economic benefits derived from exportation.
Driving Rural Development
In a CBC Current podcast’s , Paola Mejia of the Bolivian Chamber of Royal Quinoa and Organic Product Exporters confirms that in fact, income from quinoa production is driving rural development, better access to transport infrastructure, education, and healthcare in rural areas that have historically been very under-served.
Likewise, their interview with Andean Information Network director (and friend of MCC Bolivia), Kathryn Ledebur, also rejects the overall critique and focuses on farmers’ successes:
“I think it’s important to give Bolivian farmers credit as actors and people who are really in charge of their own destiny and not just unwitting victims of international markets. The quinoa boom is the result of a strategic effort here on the part of farmers cooperatives for about ten years to grow royal quinoa and organic, export-quality quinoa directed at the market. So the rise in price is not a surprising consequence of this; this is an intentional strategy by the farmers to supplement their income.”
“Another thing we need to take into account with the rise in the price is that in the past quinoa prices were quite low because the markets here were flooded with wheat from US food aid, which quinoa could not compete with and sales were low. At the same time you have the royal quinoa variety that’s being exported… you have many other varieties of quinoa that aren’t for export, you have other high protein grains such as cañawa and amaranto that Bolivians also eat and so it’s a myth—this creation of malnutrition or an economic crisis that’s not based on any real research besides a kind of knee-jerk reaction to increased quinoa prices.”
Fair Trade Quinoa
Indeed, as Ledebur notes, the rise in quinoa price is something to be celebrated for the farmers who produce it, as they have succeeded in opening up new markets for a high-nutrition, high-value product. One of the unfortunate ironies of the Fair Trade movement is that it has been most successful with luxury items such as coffee and chocolate, which are inessentials. Here, quinoa—a potential staple food—is playing an economic role that generates income for producers and provides a nutritious, healthy product for consumers.
Bolivian Chamber of Royal Quinoa and Organic Product Exporters http://www.cabolqui.org/
Andean Information Network http://ain-bolivia.org
I very much agree with Kathryn Ledebur that the Bolivian farmers should be given credit for coming up with a good strategy for increasing their income and taking control of their own destinies. She also makes a good point about other available grains and that a higher price for quinoa doesn’t mean starvation for local people.
I very much disagree with Patrocinio Garvizu that it is the responsibility of government to aim for a balance between nutritional needs of the people and economic benefits from exportation. While that sounds good theoretically, it just increases government power and leads to more tyranny. Governments need to stay out of such matters and allow the free market and the individual choices of both farmers and consumers to work things out through trial and error. Liberty always wins in the long run.
I very much agree with Kathryn Ledebur that the Bolivian farmers should be given credit for coming up with a good strategy for increasing their income and taking control of their own destinies. She also makes a good point about other available grains and that a higher price for quinoa doesn’t mean starvation for local people.
I very much disagree with Patrocinio Garvizu that it is the responsibility of government to aim for a balance between nutritional needs of the people and economic benefits from exportation. While that sounds good theoretically, it just increases government power and leads to more tyranny. Governments need to stay out of such matters and allow the free market and the individual choices of both farmers and consumers to work things out through trial and error. Liberty always wins in the long run.
@Karen: I’m glad you see the value in crediting Bolivian farmers for their successes. I’m not so sure I share the same faith in the market to work everything out (even as I might agree with the ethos that allowing freedoms is a better long-term approach) for the same reason you cite: it sounds [too] good theoretically. Inevitably in these debates regarding policy, compromise is needed such that the black and white results of one philosophy or another will never be puritanically implemented.
Likewise, government “intervention” in this case is actually unlikely to be in the form of mercantilist protectionism–that is, if the Bolivian government were to seek to balance concerns about public health and economic growth, it would most likely be in the form of subsidizing quinoa purchases (which it already does here with natural gas and petroleum) so that it is available for the local market at affordable prices. The United States government notoriously implements (or, “is guilty of,” depending on how you view it) copious subsidies of this kind for wheat and corn growers, to the detriment of a) the free market, and b) other wheat and corn growers within the auspices of the US’ free trade agreements.
Finally, if the baseline for market engagement is simply “trial and error,” that’s a lamentably low standard given there are ways to predict and improve producers’ efforts, such as in this case of quinoa growers cooperatives working together with the government to promote their product. In this case the government is working in cooperation with its people to seek their benefit. Does this make the government tyrannical?
@Karen: I’m glad you see the value in crediting Bolivian farmers for their successes. I’m not so sure I share the same faith in the market to work everything out (even as I might agree with the ethos that allowing freedoms is a better long-term approach) for the same reason you cite: it sounds [too] good theoretically. Inevitably in these debates regarding policy, compromise is needed such that the black and white results of one philosophy or another will never be puritanically implemented.
Likewise, government “intervention” in this case is actually unlikely to be in the form of mercantilist protectionism–that is, if the Bolivian government were to seek to balance concerns about public health and economic growth, it would most likely be in the form of subsidizing quinoa purchases (which it already does here with natural gas and petroleum) so that it is available for the local market at affordable prices. The United States government notoriously implements (or, “is guilty of,” depending on how you view it) copious subsidies of this kind for wheat and corn growers, to the detriment of a) the free market, and b) other wheat and corn growers within the auspices of the US’ free trade agreements.
Finally, if the baseline for market engagement is simply “trial and error,” that’s a lamentably low standard given there are ways to predict and improve producers’ efforts, such as in this case of quinoa growers cooperatives working together with the government to promote their product. In this case the government is working in cooperation with its people to seek their benefit. Does this make the government tyrannical?