A cautionary tale: UTC anthropologist investigates the rise and fall of quinoa

Farmers near Juliaca, Peru, winnow quinoa on a windy day. Photo courtesy of Dr. Emma McDonell.

When quinoa first skyrocketed in popularity, it was hailed as a miracle grain—a superfood capable of combating global malnutrition, empowering Andean farmers and adapting to climate change.

However, as University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Assistant Professor of Anthropology Emma McDonell reveals in her new book, the reality is far more complicated.

In “The Quinoa Bust: The Making and Unmaking of an Andean Miracle Crop,” published by the University of California Press, McDonell investigated the social, economic and environmental impacts of quinoa’s rapid rise and subsequent fall in the global market. Based on 18 months of ethnographic research in the highlands of Puno, Peru, her work followed farmers, processors and buyers as they navigated the volatile quinoa economy.

“There are various reasons this story is important,” McDonell said about the cautionary tale. “This story tells the complicated ramifications of the rapid cycles of fashion foods in very distant places. The reality is that the quinoa boom created both opportunities and hardships for farmers, leading to profound changes in their livelihoods and landscapes.”

An on-campus book launch and Q&A for “The Quinoa Bust: The Making and Unmaking of an Andean Miracle Crop” will take place at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 4, in the UTC Library Roth Reading Room. Click here to register for the event. The program will be facilitated by Assistant Professor of Sociology Natalie Blanton.

Dr. Emma McDonell

McDonell, a cultural, economic and environmental anthropologist, joined UTC as a visiting assistant professor in 2019 before becoming a full-time faculty member in 2021. Her research focuses on the intersections of food systems, global markets and sustainability.

Yet when she first arrived at the University of California, Santa Cruz as an undergraduate, she had never even heard the term “anthropology.”

“I was an environmental studies major, and I was sure that I was going to pursue a career in solving environmental problems in some way,” she said. “Then I stumbled into an anthropology class for a gen ed and my mind was blown.”

That class—environmental anthropology—reshaped her perspective. It helped her see that solving environmental problems required understanding not just ecosystems—but also people, cultures and systems of power.

That realization set her on the path toward studying food systems in Latin America.

Her first encounter with quinoa as a research topic came during a study abroad experience in Argentina. After her semester ended, she backpacked through the Andes, passing through Puno, Peru—the very region where her book is based.

At the time, she said, the area was embroiled in anti-mining protests, sparking her curiosity about global inequality, resource extraction and environmental justice.

“This thing that I was seeing in trendy restaurants in Santa Cruz, California, was also something that had this long legacy where I had just been,” she said. “When I applied to grad school in anthropology, that was the project that I wanted to pursue.”

When McDonell—who received both her master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology from Indiana University—first began studying quinoa in 2014, its market was soaring. Once confined to Andean diets, quinoa had exploded into health-conscious consumer markets in North America and Europe. She said farmers in Puno saw prices surge and international development organizations promoted the grain as an essential tool for poverty alleviation, nutrition and climate adaptation.

But as global demand skyrocketed, so did the unintended consequences.

McDonell’s research, funded by the Fulbright Institute of International Education and the Andrew C. Mellon Foundation, documented how farmers expanded quinoa production, leading to land disputes and soil degradation. When the market corrected in 2015 and prices plummeted, many farmers who had invested heavily in quinoa found themselves in a financial crisis.

Meanwhile, increasing competition from large-scale producers outside of the Andes further destabilized the industry.

“Historically, quinoa was not this consumer superfood,” she explained. “In the past, it was a dietary staple in the Andes. But in the early-to-mid 20th century, some international development actors and scientists began promoting quinoa; they called it a neglected and underutilized crop—a crop that had potential beyond what its existing use was.

“When demand for a so-called ‘miracle crop’ skyrockets, it can set off a chain reaction that reshapes entire communities—sometimes in ways that are difficult to undo.”

According to McDonell, the process of writing “The Quinoa Bust” took more than five years—and she admits it was a challenge to balance research, writing and the demands of academia. The work, her first as a solo author, required her to make tough choices—prioritizing the book over other projects to ensure she could tell the complete story.

“There’s this pressure for us on the tenure track to do multiple things at once,” she said. “But in order to publish this book and see it through, I had to say no to other things. That was hard because my nature is to seize opportunity and say yes and figure it out later.”

That perseverance has paid off. The book is already generating discussions in academic and policy circles—and McDonell is eager to see how it contributes to broader conversations about sustainable food systems.

“I hope this book encourages readers to think critically about the stories we tell about food and sustainability,” she said. “Who controls these narratives? Who gains? Who loses? And how can we do better?”

With the finished product now in her hands—“when that box arrived, yeah, it felt really good”—McDonell has begun considering her next chapter, so to speak.

“What is my next big project? That’s a good question,” she said. “As an anthropologist, we do tend to want a big, long-term project like this.

“On one hand, I absolutely want to go back. I’ve built relationships that I feel a responsibility to maintain, especially with those who generously contributed to my research. But I have various things that make it challenging, so I’m in this moment of figuring out what is next research-wise.”

In the meantime, she has been selected as a fellow at the New Institute in Hamburg, Germany, where she will collaborate this summer with experts and policymakers from the United Nations and other international organizations to develop global policy guidance on food system biodiversity.

While biodiversity is a focus for international organizations, its role within food systems has received less emphasis and remains less clearly defined.

“For global policymakers, there is a tension between the potential role these crops can play for malnutrition, for climate change adaptation and for poverty alleviation—and then the superfood economies that we have where wealthy consumers are increasingly interested in some of those same crops that have development potential,” she said.

“One of my intended audiences for the book is international food policymakers.”