(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The UN General Assembly and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday praised Quinoa, a highly nutritious grain-like crop, as a solution to the Zero Hunger Challenge launched last year in Brazil at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.
Addressing the General Assembly at the launch of the International Year of Quinoa 2013, Ban said "this extraordinary grain has been a cultural anchor and a staple in the diet of millions of people ... for thousands of years" in South America, and can make a "significant contribution" to promote food security and cut malnutrition worldwide.
"Quinoa can play an important role in helping accelerate progress toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing hunger by half by 2015 in South America and beyond," he added.
The delicious grain is gluten-free, contains all the essential oils and amino acids, is a good source of calcium, iron and protein; and is adaptable as it can be grown in many different ecological and climatic conditions - including where soil moisture is low.
"This is especially important in a warming world, in which desertification and land degradation are becoming ever more pressing issues. The tolerance of Quinoa to arid conditions makes it an attractive crop for farmers in all regions. That is why Quinoa cultivation is expanding from the Andean region to include Kenya, India, North America and Europe," he noted.
He said some of the poorest Andean indigenous smallholders have "already benefitted greatly from rising prices with the growing popularity of Quinoa in export markets," but warned that "as prices rise along with export demand, the poor risk being excluded from their staple grain in local markets in favour of cheaper, less nutritious processed food. Even growers can be tempted to sell all their crops and eat less healthily." Most of the world's Quinoa is currently grown on the altiplano, a vast, cold, windswept, and barren 14,000-foot Andean plateau spanning parts of Peru and Bolivia.
The grain was promoted at the UN by President Evo Morales, himself a former Quinoa farmer. He attended the Assembly's meeting today along with the First Lady of Peru, Nadine Heredia, who promotes the traditional Andean diet to combat infant malnutrition in the continent.
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