SUNS4500 Wednesday 1 September 1999

Agriculture: Andean Plant labelled the "Perfect Food"

Lima, Aug 30 (IPS/Zoradia Portillo) - Bread might be the time- honoured "stuff of life" but quinua, a starchy plant similar to corn that's been around the Andes for centuries, has been named by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as the "perfect food" to stamp out hunger in the next millennium.

Quinua (chenopodium quinoa), first domesticated by the Incas in the high Peruvian-Bolivian plains, has an extremely high nutritional value and great adaptability, according to FAO.

It can be planted at sea level or at altitudes of up to 4,000 metres, and thrives in both heat and cold. However it is little appreciated by the modern-day urban populations of Andean nations, as quinua suffers from an image of being food for "poor people" and pet birds.

Still it is now being in more than 36 countries spanning Europe, Asia and Africa and demand for the plant is increasing in the industrial North, FAO said.

In Peru, it now was being used in crop substitution programmes to eliminate coca cultivation in jungle areas. The first harvest was successful, motivating state authorities from the "Contradrogas" (anti-drug) agency to recommend it as a viable alternative crop.

However, in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, where the highest quality quinua is grown, the crop is still marginal, and its yields have remained the same for the past 30 years. Even the introduction of new farming technology has failed to fulfil the objective of modernising the production techniques of peasants living in extreme poverty.

In those sectors, the consumption of quinua actually has been decreasing because food aid donations - mainly corn - are changing the eating habits of the population.

In the cities, the high cost of quinua compared to imported rice and corn (subsidised in their countries of origin) makes it harder still to alter the buying patterns of consumers. This situation became a major topic for discussion at an international workshop held here recently - attended by specialists from 15 countries in Latin America and Europe.

"Quinua is the best example of a crop that can be produced under tremendously adverse conditions, such as very poor soil, frost at night, prolonged droughts, (and) lack of money to buy fertiliser," said Angel Mujica, director of the Post-Graduate School of the University of Altiplano de Puno, in southern Peru.

The yields in such an environment are often low - only 600 kilograms per hectare - while optimal conditions can produce up to 3,500 kg per hectare, according to a report given at the workshop.

It was also noted that quinua has vast potential for modification, and experimental tests have indicated that using improved varieties can double crop yields.

At the workshop, organised by the International Potato Centre (CIP) the Danish aid agency DANIDA, it was emphasised that Andean-grown quinua is increasingly in demand in Japan, the United States and Europe.

Juan Izquierdo, of the regional FAO office, said that about 68 countries around the world were buying some 25 different varieties of quinua.

The global demand amounts to about 100,000 tonnes annually, a quantity that the Andean nations are capable of producing, although they currently supply just half of the market.

"Quinua has enormous commercial potential, which would help thousands of Andean peasants to escape poverty," said Sven Jacobsen, head of the project to breed genetically-improved quinua that is being carried out by CIP at the behest of the Danish government.

The project has been jointly undertaken by the National University of Altiplano de Puno, the Potato Research Programme of Bolivia and the National Institute of Farming and Livestock Research of Ecuador.

Jacobsen added that it would also provide Andean farmers with an added source of income, through the installation of small agro- industries, which could make use of the school breakfast programmes subsidised by the poverty alleviation agencies existing in those countries.

Many are wondering why CIP is sponsoring research on grains when its area of interest has always been root vegetables and tubers.
"Quinua is one of the most important crops in the world and it is necessary to re-evaluate it. Someone has to do it, and who better than CIP, which is located in the centre of the genetic birthplace of this grain?" said Jacobsen.

"Besides, in the high Andean communities, quinua and potatoes are part of the same system of production: the quinua is planted after the potato harvest," he added.

To successfully penetrate the vast overseas market, the quinua must be of a uniform quality, as well as produced in abundance, which is not the present situation, said the expert. Bolivia, the biggest producer, harvests 35,000 hectares a year, and Peru about 28,000.

According to FAO, quinua is an exceptional crop in terms of its resistance to drought and saline soil. Some varieties that grow in arid and semi-arid zones can go for up to 65 days without being watered, surviving only on the moisture retained in the soil during the rainy season.

This hardiness, combined with its great nutritional value, caused quinua to be chosen as one of the crops destined to feed to world in the future. Accordingly, it has become the subject ofagricultural experiments under a wide range of environmental conditions.

In the quinua germ plasm bank in Puno, there are more than 100 varieties collected from all over the Andes, where every season, peasants plant the seeds that have fed their families for generations without knowing that this grain could save millions, even billions, of people from starvation.

"The quality of the protein contained in quinua is outstanding. It composition of essential amino acids is as perfect as that of milk, meaning that it doesn't require any additives, which represents a real exception in the animal kingdom," notes a report by Hans Schoeneberger.

Schoeneberger, who carried out a study on the nutritional value of Andean crops and their contribution to solving malnutrition in Bolivia, is convinced that quinua is the key to the problem of chronic malnutrition, which affects peasant children in Andean countries.

FAO's interest in the plant has attracted the attention of scientific organisations and international aid agencies,
providing an extraordinary opportunity for specialists in plant genetics, as well as farmers, to obtain funding for their projects.

The project led by Jacobsen, now in its third year, has selected 25 high-yield, drought-resistant varieties. In the next few weeks, it will enter into its second phase, in which it will work more closely with the peasant farmers themselves.

It will be they who will ultimately choose the improved varieties that are most suitable for planting, and which it is hoped will someday conquer the world.