Eat This Podcast

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Quinoa — that darling of the health-conscious western consumer — came in for a lot of flack a few years ago. Skyrocketing prices caused some food activists to claim that the poor quinoa farmers of the high Andean plains in Bolivia and Peru were no longer able to afford their staple food. Every mouthful we ate was taken direct from a hungry peasant. Some people even gave up eating the stuff. Other writers retaliated by saying that high prices were the best thing that ever happened to those poor farmers. And agricultural economists saw an opportunity to prove their worth.

The results are in. High prices are indeed good for farmers. And they had no impact on nutrition among either quinoa farmers or those who merely buy it from time to time. If you gave up on quinoa, you can take it up again with a clean conscience.

But that’s not to say all is perfect. In this episode, the impact of high prices on quinoa farmers, the problems to come and how western consumers can be part of the solution.

Notes

1. There’s quite a lot about quinoa’s various ups and downs over at the other place. This is a good place to start.
2. Bellemare, Fajardo-Gonzalez and Gitter’s paper is Foods and Fads: The Welfare Impacts of Rising Quinoa Prices in Peru.
3. Andrew Stevens’ paper is Quinoa Quandary: Cultural Tastes and Nutrition in Peru.
4. Bioversity International has lots of information about Payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services.
5. Lots more from Andean Naturals at their website.

6. The banner photograph I took in Cotacachi, Ecudaor. And the cover image uses a Wikimedia image by Christian Guthier – originally posted to Flickr as Homegrown Quinoa!, CC BY 2.0.

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At this year’s Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food I talked to Jon Verriet, who’s been researching the history of the haybox. That’s an insulated container, into which you put hot food, which then keeps cooking thanks to the retained heat. Jon made the point that hayboxes often see an upsurge during times of war and hardship, when they can be promoted as good for the country because they save energy and money. Environmentally-aware types also like them, to save energy as they cook their lentils.

Researching the haybox myself, I came across its modern incarnation, the Wonderbag, which neatly ties those two motivations together. When you buy one, perhaps for environmental reasons, you’re actually paying for two, one of which goes to a poor family to save money, fuel, time, water, everything. I thought that was worth a follow-up, and so sought out Sarah Collins, a South African social entrepreneur who developed the Wonderbag.

Notes

1. The Wonderbag website tells the story and links through to the Wonderbag Foundation.
2. The University of California at Berkeley study mentioned in the podcast concluded that the Wonderbag saves 8–21% of the time family members spend cooking, 10–36% of fuel costs, and allows families to spend 36–60% more on food.
3. Banner photograph thanks to Annie Templeton at Goedgedacht Trust. Cover photo by Edrea du Toit for Netwerk 24.
4. The haybox through history episode, for convenience.

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When it comes to cradles of agriculture, West Africa does not often get a look in. The Sahel is better known as a place of famine than of feasting, but it wasn’t always so, and even today the Bamana people of Mali have a rich food culture.

Stephen Wooten – that’s him in the picture enjoying a meal with his friends and collaborators – is an anthropologist who has been working in Mali since the early 1990s. He gave a great talk at this year’s Amsterdam Symposium on the History of Food, after which we had a chance to talk about food in Mali and how it evolved from gathering and hunting through herding cattle and sheep to settled agriculture, along the way domesticating some important cereals such as millet.

There’s a lot more to the food culture though. Women and men work separately but together to ensure that the community can eat, with a strict division of labour and equally strict sharing of responsibilities.

Notes

1. The banner photograph, by Stephen Wooten, shows the antelope headdress worn by dancers in the Ciwara performance, a celebration that recounts the mythical origins of Bamana agriculture and that, like Bamana food culture, requires the participation of women and men.

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