In lieu of recent negative light being shed on quinoa farming and high western demands, Alter Eco wants to acknowledge the full effect of increasing demands on the farmers lives and highlight the benefits of a sustainable, direct relationship with the producers.
This blog post is an account of what our company, through our co-founder and COO Edouard Rollet, has seen and experienced of the situation in Bolivia regarding quinoa cultivation, as an answer to recent negative articles about this issue.
Alter Eco has always chosen the highest quality, sustainable ingredients for its consumers. We believe that GMOs are not compatible with our vision of quality or respect of the environment and producers. According to the Non-GMO Project, “Over 80 percent of all GMOs grown worldwide are engineered for herbicide tolerance. As a result, use of toxic herbicides, like Roundup, has increased 15 times since GMOs were introduced.”
In March I traveled to Bolivia to visit our partner cooperative ANAPQUI, as I do every year. Besides their amazing ability to grow and cultivate something in such a desolate landscape, I am always fascinated how our friends lives on the Altiplano revolve around this resilient seed, and how they incorporate it in their daily diets!
-Edouard
Edouard’s Answer to TIME Magazine’s Article “Quinoa: The Dark Side of an Andean Superfood”
By Edouard / April 4th, 2012
Recently, adding to the confusion on the global impact of quinoa, TIME Magazine wrote an article similar in style and form to the New York Times’ “Quinoa Quandary.” Let me take some time to answer some of the claims that it brings up, based on our long time experience working with Bolivianos