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Few stories have dominated the public perception about a food item more persistently than the 2013 article in the Guardian titled: ‘Can Vegans Stomach the Unpalatable Truth about Quinoa.’ The Economist now takes on the claim that increasing demand by western ‘food fadsters’ is driving the population in Peru and Bolivia into poverty and undernourishment. … Read more
The article “The Global Expansion of Quinoa: Trends and Limits” published in Frontiers in Crop Science sketches the expansion of quinoa production, with a focus on the distribution of germ plasm. Based on a mini survey among experts, the authors Didier Bazile, Sven-Erik Jacobson and Alexis Verniau present interesting data on testing and breeding of … Read more
Annual quinoa imports into the European Union reached 20038 tons in February 2016, representing a growth rate of 29%. Growth thus continues to be strong, although lower than in the previous year, when it stood at 54%, and in the year before, when it was 68%. The analysis of monthly data shows that in February … Read more
Chia imports into the European Union increased by an amazing 185% in the year ending February 2016, as compared to a year before. The four main chia exporting countries in Latin America, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Mexico, exported a total of 12701 MT chia to EU countries. The average chia import price has been … Read more
With the year 2015 coming to a close, import figures show that the quinoa market is still growing rapidly. In the year ending October 2015, imports increased by 40% compared to the year before (Figure 1). This is exactly the same growth rate as recorded a year earlier, from 2013 to 2014. In the year … Read more
At the end of 2015 we look back on a turbulent year in the chia market: in view of abundant stock in origin prices continued to fall; the harvests were much smaller throughout Latin-America; but the market continues to grow, as we will show below. In the year ending October 2015, chia exports to the … Read more
In the past year (2014/2015) the chia market has cooled down substantially, as a result of a record production in 2014. In Bolivia, for example, the area sown in 2014 increased to 80000 hectares, from 50000 hectares in 2013 (CBI 2014)*. Prices to farmers have become very low, with conventional chia of unspecified quality changing … Read more
Growth of EU quinoa imports from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador accelerated to 57% in January-May 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. In January- May 2014 imports grew at ‘only’ 32% compared to a year before. In 2014 as a whole the import volume from these three countries was 14,468 MT, which constituted an … Read more
Last weekend the slight increase of the price for white quinoa continued, and closed at 800 Bolivianos per quintal (US$2.54 per kg) on 19 April 2015. The reason for this price increase is the poor development of the quinoa crop this year due to unfavorable weather conditions, in particular drought and frost. The harvest is … Read more
Total quinoa imports from Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador to the EU have increased from 6233 MT in 2013 to 8284 MT in 2014, over the same period of January–August. In 2012 they were 3700 MT in the same period. This means that the European quinoa market continues its strong development in the first part of … Read more