Bolivia between present times and future challenges: environmental and socioeconomic threats posed by the Quinoa Boom ABSTRACT: In the space of a few decades, Bolivia has evolved from being a rural country, based on a subsistence and agricultural economy into one of the lead countries in the quinoa industry all over the world. In the aftermath of the recent quinoa boom and of the increasing interest of vegans, vegetarians and in general of people coming from the North of the World towards this organic superfood, Bolivia and especially one of its regions, the southern Bolivian Altiplano, has experienced an extreme and sudden change of its socio-cultural and economic assets. Pastoral populations from the southern Bolivian Altiplano that have been cultivating quinoa for their own subsistence since the dawn of time, have recently had to totally re-invent their lifestyle and working habits, in order to meet the rising global consumer demand for quinoa. Bolivia has benefitted from the merging of this uncontrollable and thriving global market, at least in monetary terms. Nonetheless, the overexploitation of quinoa crops and the absence of precise and rigid laws and regulations aiming to protect indigenous farmers is leading to tragic consequences, both from an environmental and social standpoint. After having given a general background knowledge about this superfood, this paper discusses the ecological and social impact of such an intensive new market on Bolivian local realities and entities. Merely profit-oriented and non-sustainable agricultural practices and Bolivian detrimental national policies will be approached here, with the aim of highlighting the seminal economic future challenges to which the country would be soon confronted. 1 KEY WORDS: vulnerability, sustainability, environmental impact, soil degradation, land erosion, deficit irrigation, monocropping quinoa culture, food security. INTRODUCTION: Contributing to 46% of total world production, followed by Peru with a scoring of 42% and just recently USA with 6.3%, Bolivia is without any doubt the world’s biggest producer of quinoa (Eisenstein, 2012). This seed, quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), is just one of the many subsistence crops characteristics to the Bolivian Andean Altiplano, where it grows along with a variety of protein-rich pseudo-cereals such as kiwicha (Amaranthus caudatus) or kañawa (Chenopodium pallidicaule) and local tubers like isaño (Tropaeolum tuberosum) and oca (Oxalis tuberosa) (Kerssen,2015). In this sense, it could be useful to investigate the reason why this specific crop has gained such a global success, instead of one of the many other cereals and vegetables endemic to the same region, the southern Altiplano. This Andean pseudo-grain, more closely linked to plants such as tumbleweed and beets than wheat (Eisenstein,2012), displays a vast array of benefits concerning its production but also its consumption. This super plant can adapt and resist to such a vast range of adverse climatic conditions: it can grow strong and prosperous even if confronted to extreme climatic conditions such as high temperatures, severe drought, and frost. Quinoa can naturally adapt to nutrient poor and dry soil, that would result as too salty or sandy for other types of crops (Geerts et al., 2008). In fact, as Eisenstein (2012) notes: “Indigenous Bolivians have adapted varieties of quinoa to survive on mountains with thin soil and high winds, but it can be modified and grown to live in most types of soil and weather conditions. More importantly, quinoa grows best in low nutrient soil”. In addition to this, this hardy plant seeds are protected by a bitter (rich in saponins) and quite robust shell that must be removed prior to the quinoa commercialization on the market. This shell allows a better resistance against pesticides and chemical agents dangerous for other crops (Eisenstein, 2012). Apart from its adaptive capacity when exposed and confronted to adverse climatic conditions and hostile environments, this grain with a long record of past cultivation (indigenous farmers have been cropping it for millennia) has recently become so famous worldwide because of its nutritional values and benefits: thanks to its richness in vitamins and essential amino acids such as lysine (Geerts and al., 2008) and thanks to its high content in carbohydrates and low content in fats, quinoa represent 2 a perfect gluten-free and vegan alternative to other grains and animal derived products (Eisenstein, 2012). Among the numerous varieties of quinoa that are cultivated in the Andean region, the most prized and valued one on the global market appears to be quinua real, most widely known as “royal quinoa”. This specific quinoa variety, endemic to the intersalar region (Located approximately within the shores of Uyuni Salt flats) and produced for the most part in the departments of Oruro and Potosí, has become the most preferred by European, American and in general foreign consumers because of its high nutritional value and its large white seeds (Kerssen,2015). Quinoa boom: So, thanks to its nutritional value and its gluten-free, almost fat-free characteristics, quinoa has started to conquer the global market as a vegetarian and healthy superfood from the 1970s onwards. As aforementioned, quinoa has been cropped for millennia: all its varieties where already well known to the Incas, and even though European Spanish colonization to which Bolivia was subjected from 1500s to 1800s, these crops, carried on by indigenous farmers, survived to this day. Despite its portentous qualities and ancient origins, for a long time this “super-seed” has been branded by the national élite as an “indigenous food”, as a poor crop with no real commercial value (Giuliani et al., 2012 in Chelleri, 2016). The quinoa demand, after having interested just the isolated domestic markets of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador for a long time, started to expand to Western areas such as Europe, United States and Japan from 1970s onwards (Ofstehage, 2012). However, it was only from the mid-1980s that a stable quinoa market was established. The quinoa price has been kept low on the market for a time span of almost 25 years, until the quinoa boom that took place in 2008, when this healthy superfood popularity and its consequent demand reached unprecedent heights (Walsh-Dilley, 2020). As reported by Ofstehage (2012): “The price of quinoa has risen dramatically from just a few dollars per ton in the 1970s to over $1,400 per ton in 2009 and the market continues to fluctuate […]”. In 2012, the demand for quinoa reached 36 different importing countries (Kerseen,2015) and as a direct consequence, in order to satisfy this growing global request, Bolivian quinoa farmers had to change their working and life habits by increasing their volumes of production. The cultivation of this “golden grain of the Andes” experienced an unprecedented expansion: in areas such as the Salar Region the production has been drastically intensified, whereas other regions that have never been characterised by the presence of this crop, started to be converted in quinoa fields (Walsh-Dilley, 2017). Unfortunately, this uncontrolled expansion is negatively impacting Bolivians’ quality of life. 3 it could be useful in this respect to report here what Walsh-Dilley (2014) highlight during the research she has conducted on San Juan inhabitants: “As quinoa production expanded to meet international demand, livelihoods in San Juan have increasingly specialized around quinoa. This near complete dependence on quinoa production and sale has made livelihoods here more vulnerable to climate disruption, environmental destruction, and market volatility”. the environmental impact first, and the socio-economic consequences of this unprecedented demand after, will be examined more in detail in the next two sections of this paper. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: Quinoa Boom has drastically inverted quinoa production tendencies in the entire Altiplano: boosted also by the creation of the “UN’s International Year of Quinoa” in 2013, this crop popularity has rapidly taken over the world. It is clear in this sense, how the lack of a precise and sustainable plan of production and commercialization of quinoa can pose a considerable problem for the already fragile Bolivian environment and for the farmers protection. The quinoa-planted area of the Altiplano shifted from 51,000 hectares in 2009 to an incredible amount of 104,000 in 2013, with this huge increase going to take its toll on the already sandy, salty, and low-nutrient volcanic soils of the region (Kerssen, 2015). If environmental damage was kept to a minimum in the past, it is also true that for millennia, prior to the Quinoa Boom, this crop production has inscribed itself in a subsistence economy circle and has been destined to the sole fulfilment of indigenous communities’ dietary needs. Bolivian farmers produced quinoa for their own subsistence by means of traditional and lowimpacting techniques that did no harm to the natural environment and that were on the contrary intended to preserve soil fertility and quality: rotation of crops with fallow periods of 4-6 years and the construction terraces, along with manual work with minimal ploughing and in restricted areas were all practices enacted with the aim of preserving the Altiplano virgin land for the use of future generations (Eisenstein, 2012). However, as soon as an international market settled, a need to increase production also emerged: traditional techniques were no longer sufficient to sustain the volumes of production required for international export. A mono-cropped quinoa production demanded the use of tractors, disk ploughs and sowing machinery along with the use of pesticides and slash agriculture, all used with the aim of maximising production and profits. Mechanization of the quinoa production: If discussing about the “Quinoa Boom” and its unprecedent expansion on the international market, it is inaccurate not to mention the huge role played in the entire process by the introduction of tractors to the southern Bolivian Altiplano in the 1960s and ‘70s. The use of heavy machinery allowed a considerable expansion of quinoa crops, that was to be found originally on hillside terraces, towards the plains of the Altiplano, the scrublands anciently destined to grazing (Kerssen, 2015). A striking illustration of the entire situation is given by Chelleri (2016): “The mapping exercises testified a sharp growth in the percentage of plots dedicated to quinoa mono-cropping in 2012 4 compared with 2010 and 2008. The most dramatic growth during these four selected years happened in the community of Sivignani, which passed from no cultivation in 2008 to occupying 70 % of the total arable soils.” However, even though the mechanization of production helped obtaining larger plots (Chelleri, 2016) the heavy and continuous use of machinery in the region has brought with it a vast array of negative consequences for the environment. Not only tractors, disk ploughs and other types of agricultural equipment have caused a loss of 70 metric hectares of soil a year (Eisenstein,2012), but they have also contributed to the loosening of the subsoil, establishing the premises for a “more favourable environment for pests” (Kerssen, 2015). In this regard, if the use of pesticides and fertilizers is forbidden by the existence of organic certifications laws, on the other hand, any limit is imposed to the use of heavy mechanized devices in the production process of quinoa (Ofstehage, 2012). Traditional agricultural methods used previously by indigenous farmers appeared as much more sustainable towards the Bolivian environment: their ecological impact was almost null, and they caused no harm to the virgin lands of the Southern Altiplano. On the contrary, the question arises if the actual mechanized practices would be sustainable for the region and its inhabitants in the long run. Soil deterioration and erosion: As previously stated by various scholars, such as Jacobsen (2011), Medrano, Echelar and Torrico (2015) new monocropping quinoa strategies are the cause of the severe deterioration that recently interest Bolivian soils, both from a quantitative (soils erosion) and a qualitative point of view (soils more and more unfertile) (Walsh Dilley, 2020). Even though we cannot fully and extensively assess to what extent the quinoa production of the recent years is affecting Bolivian environmental quality, it is quite clear how its extensification and intensification is taking a huge toll on the Altiplano, leading to a quick soil deterioration and erosion (ibid.). As Eisenstein (2012) reports: “According to the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Planning (MDSMA), out of the country's 1,500,000 hectares of agricultural land, some 1,800,000 MT of soil are lost annually due to erosion, meaning that the productive capacity is gradually reducing.” A vast array of factors is, in fact, contributing to this tragic deterioration: one of the very first reasons is to be found in the disruption of fallowing and rotation practices. Long fallows have always been respected and put in place by Andean farmers, with the aim of letting the soil rest sufficiently and 5 restore itself with all the nutritious substances necessary to obtain thriving crop and conspicuous yields. But nowadays, in order to meet the gigantic international demand for quinoa, farmers can no longer let crops rest for long periods: arable lands are overworked, exploited until their total desertification and until became unfertile and unusable (ibid.). In addition to this, as the quinoa market expands its volumes of production and new areas begin to be cultivated with this crop, a new challenge comes to the surface. Latest territories and soils are normally of lower quality: they are sandier and saltier if compared with the original loamier zones of quinoa production (ibid.) Quinoa biodiversity at risk: Another risk posed by the internationalization of the quinoa market is represented by the possible loss at biodiversity to which Bolivia could be recently confronted. As we have already affirmed in the general introduction of this paper, royal white quinoa is the most famous and priced variety of this crop, the one that is almost exclusively exported worldwide. However, Bolivian land is rich in thousands of different varieties of quinoa: roughly 2950 types have been found in the country. (Eisenstein, 2012). But because of a high demand of just a few types of Royal Quinoa and because of the expansion of a monocropping type of agricultural industry, the vast majority of farmers tend to cultivate a very restricted number of ecotypes of Royal Quinoa, totally neglecting all the other varieties of this superfood (ibid.). Such a deleterious practice could lead to a great loss in diversity and could have a huge impact on the Andean environment. In fact, this loss will let the few quinoa plants left for production as more susceptible to various diseases, as Eisenstein remarks. Climatic change: rising temperatures in the Bolivian Altiplano One of the most alarming concerns that is currently affecting Bolivia is represented by the effects on its climate of the extensification and intensification of quinoa production along with other endemic natural factors. In fact, data and recent reports on climate highlight a trend of rising temperatures that has interested Bolivia for the entire past half-century (Seiler et al. 2013). As Walsh-Dilley (2020) remarks, in the time span going from 2015 to 2017, the Bolivian Plateau faced one of the worst droughts ever, the most severe of the last 25 years. And actual statistics suggest that if left uncontrolled and not inverted this trend will affect in tragic ways the Andean natural ecosystem and campesinos life’s quality as well. Indigenous people have always lived in an arid country, Bolivia, and more specifically in the region of the Bolivian Altiplano, characterized by frequent droughts, and temperature variations. Quinoa itself has adapted to these natural factors and grows quite well in low moisture and 6 highly arid environments. However, the droughts registered over the last decades in this area are increasingly acute and harsh: warmer temperatures and a reduced rainy season result in high rates of evapotranspiration of moisture from soils that are already dry-prone (Vicente-Serrano et al., 2015 in Walsh-Dilley, 2020). As noted by Tompkins and Adger (2004) rural folks are the one that are and will suffer the most from this climate disruption: even if they do not possess the right tools to analyse climatic factors from a scientific standpoint, they are fully aware of the epochal change that is already taking place around them. While Andean campesinos try to adapt to these new life’s conditions, their lack of knowledge and of resources to protect themselves against these new perspectives, represent a major concern in our analysis. In fact, as Walsh-Dilley (2020) report in his work, citing MacDowell, Hess, and Valdivia: “Such communities often have poor access to a variety of resources, including adequate land and water, certainly, but also resources like education, political infrastructure, and financial capital; this limits their ability to build the kind of resilience capacities that are needed to cope with climate disruption”. Water scarcity and future challenges: deficit irrigation As we have just said, frequent droughts, low yearly rainfall, and increasingly high temperatures in the Southern Bolivian Altiplano represent a major concern for the region and especially for the agricultural sector. As a matter of fact, the Altiplano is an area affected by a serious water scarcity and the few water sources available are often too saline to be employed in the agricultural industry for a proper irrigation of Andean crops. In this sense, full irrigation, necessary to increase yields from agricultural production, is almost always unsustainable in arid areas and nations such as Bolivia. However, a valid alternative could be represented by deficit irrigation (DI), a particular technique that implies the provision of water to crops just during certain critical growth stages, when a proper irrigation is needed the most (Geerts et al., 2008). With regards to our case, DI could be a good solution to maximise quinoa production and boost the fertility of Andean soils, eroded, and degraded by an excessive industrialization of the agricultural process and the disruption of fallowing periods in crop rotations. In particular, as underlined by Geerts (2008): “an important irrigation, prior to sowing will not only leach salts out of the root zone but will create good initial soil water conditions as well, resulting in a good establishment of the seedling and early root development”. With regards to the Bolivian environment and situation, when talking about DI it is important to consider the risks of soil salinization: being Bolivian water resources scarce and saline as well, their usage for deficit irrigation could result in soil salinization and severe harming for quinoa crops (ibid.). 7 Climate disruption and all the threats and menaces that are deriving and will derive from it in the future need to be assessed by the Bolivian government, NGO, local institutions and cooperatives, with the purpose of finding concrete solutions and conceiving sustainable development plans for the Bolivian Andean Altiplano. However, climate changes are not the only ones threatening Andean campesinos quality of life: these factors must be analysed and considered alongside a series of other socio-cultural and economic stressors that weight on the shoulders of rural folks. As Walsh-Dilley (2020) emphasise, such “stresses, constraints and inequalities […] together produce and perpetuate vulnerability (of Andean folks)”. SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT: With 40% of its population struggling to earn enough money to meet their basic food needs, and with a 35% of inhabitants that leave in extreme poverty, Bolivia is unfortunately one of the poorest countries of the entire southern Hemisphere (Eisenstein, 2012). The economic and social divide to which Bolivians are confronted is one of the main issues of the nation: if the wealthier folks tend to conduct a comfortable life in urban areas, the vast majority of Bolivians lives in poverty in rural areas. Among the latter, who rely on a subsistence agricultural economy, are to be found the quinoa farmers and the campesinos of the Bolivian Altiplano. In that regard, the first effects of the Quinoa boom seemed to be positive, in that they helped rural folks to satisfy some of their basic needs, needs that have been difficult to meet up to that moment. Chelleri (2016) perfectly describes this socioeconomic framework in his works: “The cultivation of quinoa has generated not only land use changes but also profound transformations within communities’ habits and behaviours. The success of the quinoa market led to an increase in the farmers’ annual income, […] economic growth, fortunately, induced investments in housing, children’s education, basic infrastructures enhancement (e.g., electricity, piped water) and services provision (e.g., mobility).” Notwithstanding this, the wave of innovation that invested the Altiplano consequently to the Quinoa Boom of the last few decades has brought with it also several negative consequences, that concern 8 the environment as much as the socio-economic assets and traditional cultural organization of the country. Endangered solidarity links: Ayni and Minka in the present times For millennia Bolivia has been populated by pastoral transhumant societies, which continuously traversed the entire country along with their caravans and their packs of llamas. These Andean campesinos were used to exchange various types of goods with the habitants from sedentary farming villages, from which they borrowed vegetables, tubers etcetera. (Kerssen, 2015). In that regard, it is important to note how the set of rules that regulated these fundamental relationships between Bolivians can be defined as “Ayllu”. This system of rules, based on a traditional and fixed repartition of the Bolivian rural society and founded around the seminal idea of solidarity between pairs, continues to exist up to these days even if transformed. Its existence has been of major importance for maintaining a stable and cohesive society over the centuries. As explained by Kerssen (2015): “Risk management and dietary diversity in Andean food systems went hand in hand with the ayllu system, which were based on reciprocity relations; seasonal migration to various productive zones; communal resource management; and long-distance trade to exchange products from different regions and elevations. Under this system, ‘indigenous pastoral production was able for centuries to maintain a balance between demographic constraints and resource scarcity”. Ayllu is strictly related to “ayni” and “minka”, the former being the community rule of always helping each other out and the latter representing more specifically to the act of sharing agricultural labour (Chelleri, 2016). Rural families of the Bolivian Altiplano have always followed these solidarity rules by engaging themselves in mutual aid towards other individuals being part of the same community. When it comes to quinoa cultivation, this mutual aid can consist for example of help in planting and harvesting different crops and fields. During the first stages of extensification of quinoa production and its consequent commercialization, Andean farmers tended to lean on the ayllu system and the ayni and minka sets of communitarian rules, with the aim of overcoming together the challenges and difficulties posed by this new internationalized market to which they were not familiar by any way (Walsh-Dilley, 2013). That being said, however, in the last years these systems began to crumble down, and a lack of trust among rural community members is nowadays starting to show up. As states Walsh-Dilley (2020): “Previously vibrant institutions at the village and regional levels have diminished in importance and influence”, because of the capitalistic mechanisms that come into play. 9 A significative example that shows how these strong solidarity ties are starting to loosen up is given by the processes on informal appropriation of common land and unequal distribution of fields, all triggered by the recent mechanization of quinoa production. In this regard, it is important to mention here “Aymaras”, that is the tradition Andean agrarian system according to which any member of a rural local community can take possession of a certain slot of common land just by clearing it (Carimentrand and Ballet, 2010). For a long time, this process has been associated with the act of clearing by hand strips of land located along mountain slopes, to be able to farm them and provide to one’s own subsistence. But with the advent of mechanization in the Altiplano this balance has been abruptly disrupted: those who owned one or many tractors started to clear larger portions of soil, located in the plains rather than on the slopes, with the final aim of using them for monocropping quinoa production (ibid.). These practices have led firstly to a radical reduction in the common land originally used for grazing and secondly to the exacerbation of injustices in the development process of different quinoa farmers (Félix,2004 in Carimentrand and Ballet, 2010). In addition to this, farmers are granted with usufruct rights for the land they nominally possess. Therefore, individuals who cleared larger portions of virgin common fields at the dawn of the Quinoa Boom have limited the access of young people to the same land. Residentes and Estantes: present tensions and future hostilities Another phenomenon that, alongside appropriation of common lands by tractors owners and big farmers, is destabilizing the traditional indigenous norm system, is represented by the problematic Residentes-Estantes relationship. In 2009 Carlos-Aroni et al. registered how of the 435 families that lived in the Altiplano community only 254 of them were permanently settled in the Andes. These last ones are known as “Estantes”, while “Residentes” is a term used to designate people who left the Altiplano for urban environments but somehow come back to rural areas periodically, just to take care of their quinoa crops and for harvesting them. In that regard, the Quinoa Boom has contributed to intensify the conflict existing between these two categories, a relationship that, as Chelleri (2016) emphasise, is “threatening communities’ traditional roles”. In fact, estantes harshly complain about residentes: according to them, the latter are disrespecting both elderly campesinos and traditional norms of Ayni and Minka, because of their solely interest in maximising profit from their crops and speculating on Andean land (ibid.). 10 The profound divide that exists between these two groups is exacerbated by different levels of formal education and instruction: residentes generally possess a much higher level of education if compared to rural folks living in the Altiplano (Kerssen, 2015). Furthermore, this clash of visions is even more evident when we take into account older estantes in opposition with younger generations of residentes: the last ones are fierce supporters of the current internationalization and extensification of quinoa market. In general, young people coming from the cities perceive communities’ traditional roles and the ayllu system as useless and meaningless. in that sense, Kerssen remarks: “These dynamics demonstrate that sustainability is not merely a technical question. It is tightly linked – as it has been for millennia – to culturally embedded organisational forms that mediate resource use and land tenure. Having survived for centuries on the margins of colonial and postcolonial development, the ayllu now faces profound challenges.” Eating quinoa in 2000s’: Can Bolivians still afford it? Thanks to its nutritional properties and its low to null cost for indigenous farmers and people, quinoa has been the basis of every Bolivian diet since the dawn of time, especially when it comes to Andean campesinos that inhabit the Altiplano. This extraordinary superfood can be consumed under many forms and can be integrated in various recipes: it can be toasted and used to make flour, boiled and then added to salad or soups, or even pressed to make quinoa milk (Eisenstein, 2012). Nonetheless this equilibrium has been disrupted by all the recent events correlated to the quinoa revolution: the editorial that appeared on the famous New York Times on 19 March 2011 alerted its readers about the harm who has been done to Bolivians by the increase of quinoa production and by its international exportation (ibid.). With a 600% increase of its market price from 2000 to 2008 alone, quinoa has started to become unaffordable and inaccessible for those who first based their entire dietary regimen on it (Ofstehage, 2012). This is the reason why indigenous folks have been experiencing a radical transformation in their eating habits over the past few decades: their daily quinoa caloric intake has shifted from around 238 calories a day (1988) to a minimum of 22 calories a day in 1998 (Eisenstein, 2012). On the other hand, much less nutritious but cheaper foods such as Rice (instead of quinoa) and Coca cola (instead of quinoa milk) have recently entered their diets (Ofstehage, 2012). Government institutions should take action in that sense, in order to protect their citizens, especially those who live 11 in conditions of extreme poverty and make sure that no one in the entire nation would risk being completely unable to have quinoa in their diets in the future. Instituting lower prices, distributing subsidies “al interior” of the country and raising prices on the exports are all possible measures that would ensure food security for Bolivian inhabitants (Eisenstein). CONCLUSIONS The fact that indigenous people are deprived from what has been their main source of nutrition for millennia, the same source they help cultivate and provide for the international market, is totally ignominious. Actually, the entire situation of events that has been interesting the Bolivian Altiplano over the past few decades, is unsustainable and wrong on so many levels. Current environmental, social, and economic problematics such as land degradation and erosion, an alarming tendency of rising temperatures in the entire Altiplano and un uncontrolled expansion of the quinoa market made at the detriment of rural folks and farmers, must be all tackled down by government organizations and local cooperatives. Nowadays more than ever, Bolivian government needs to plan a long-term strategy of sustainable development for the region and propose a flexible model of production that sustains communities and helps them fortify their resilience skills instead of favouring the exploitation of indigenous folks perpetrated by foreign countries and multinational corporations. Bolivia has been one of the poorest nations of the Southern Hemisphere for a long time, and a real benefit from this new thriving market cannot be really obtained without providing indigenous folks with the right instruments to protect themselves from big corporations and learn how to adapt to an international market framework, (such as knowledge on efficient and sustainable cropping methods, alternative systems of irrigations and especially knowledge of their rights as regards Labour Law). Even though at present times nearly nothing has been done from the Bolivian government to protect and support quinoa farmers communities, we all hope that further steps towards a fairer progress and development of the Altiplano region would be made by governmental institutions in the near future. Elisa Squadrito, University of Bologna. 12 BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carimentrand Aurélie & Ballet Jérôme (2010). “When Fair Trade increases unfairness: The case of quinoa from Bolivia”, Working Papers 52010, Fonds pour la Recherche en Ethique Economique. Chelleri L., Minucci G. & Skrimizea E. (2016). “Does community resilience decrease social–ecological vulnerability? Adaptation pathways trade-off in the Bolivian Altiplano” Reg Environ Change 16, 2229– 2241. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-1046-8 Eisenstein M. (2012). 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