The quinoa bust : the making and unmaking of an Andean miracle crop

"High in the Peruvian altiplano, 13,000 feet above sea level, quinoa's rise to global stardom was pitched as an unparalleled sustainable development opportunity that heralded a brighter future for rural communities devastated by decades of rural-urban migration, civil war, and state neglect. Based in a longitudinal ethnography centered around Puno, Peru, the main quinoa production area in the world's chief quinoa exporting country, The Quinoa Bust traces the social, ecological, technological, and political work that went into transforming a humble Andean grain into a development miracle crop, and highlights that project's unintended consequences. The Quinoa Bust shows how even efforts based in the best of intentions - to counteract the homogenization of global food supply, empower small-scale farmers, revalue local food cultures, and adapt agricultural systems to climate change - can generate new kinds of oppressions. At a time when so-called "forgotten foods" are increasingly positioned as sustainable development tools, The Quinoa Bust offers a cautionary tale of fleeting benefits and ambivalent results."