Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Quinoa Dilemma, Cont.

The Dish has posted some reactions to the article I linked to yesterday with some excellent points, disparaging the knock on vegans (I agree) and also making the excellent point that
"Nowhere in the article does she even mention that farmers become wealthier when the price of their crop increases. I am not an expert in the industrial organization of Bolivian quinoa farmers, but presumably they could choose to continue consuming quinoa, instead of exporting it, if they felt that was best. For Bolivian farmers, at least, the rising price of quinoa only increased their set of options."

1 comment:

Joel said...

"but presumably they could choose to continue consuming quinoa, instead of exporting it, if they felt that was best. For Bolivian farmers, at least, the rising price of quinoa only increased their set of options."

That's fine for the farmers. But what about the poor who live in urban areas? (62% of Bolivians live in urban areas, as do 76% of Peruvians.)