Meeting

Thu 13 June: Next PhD discussion meeting on Agriculture-Climate-Forests-Food

This session Federico Andreotti will present the proposal of his PhD on exploring the process of co-constructing a collective governance to recognize and promote neglected and underutilized species (NUS) in the global market. Federico asks the discussion group for input on several discussion points.

In the second part, we will have a nice and fun interactive session in which we ask the participants for new ideas for organizing this discussion group, so make sure you bring your phone or laptop with you!

Organised by REDD@WUR and CSA@WUR
Date

Thu 13 June 2019 12:15 to 13:15

Venue Lumen, building number 100
Droevendaalsesteeg 3a
100
6708 PB Wageningen
+31 (0) 317 - 481 700
Room Lumen 6

Neglected and underutilized species (NUS) have a great potential for fighting poverty, hunger and malnutrition, on the other hand no global market instruments clearly established the recognition and the promotion of these species. One of the most commercialized NUS is quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.). Its potentials were promoted during the International Year of Quinoa in 2013 (IYQ-2013) by the United Nations. IYQ-2013 did not cover concrete aspects of the worldwide diffusion of quinoa as commercial interests and unbalanced competition between farmers from the Andes and farmers from North America and Europe. Document the ancestral role of Andean farmers and co-construct a collective governance instrument as Marca Colectiva (MC i.e. Frutos de la Tierra) can attain recognition for their quinoa. MC is a participatory label used to defend property rights on producing and trading farming products and to recognize their anteriority for the international markets. To reach this main objective, the region of Puno in Peru where farmers are preserving the highest quinoa diversity hotspot in the world is selected as case study. Three farming systems will be documented concerning their modernity and sustainability: aynokas, traditional systems, systems focused on export. Participatory games and agent based model will be used for exploring the gap between micro-scale actors (farms and regional level) and larger-scale political systems (major quinoa Andean states producers) for developing an Andean MC for quinoa. The urgency to develop this study it’s not restricted to Andean quinoa but also to other NUS that are having a similar boom as fonio, amaranth and teff.

Discussion points:

  1. What are the roles and drivers of global market for recognize and promote sustainable production and trade for NUS?
  2. Which are the bottom up or top down approach that allow to co-construct a more sustainable and inclusive NUS market?
  3. Is it possible to develop an ABM that cross the gap between micro-scale actors and larger-scale environmental, infrastructural and political systems?
For more information on the REDD@WUR network, please contact Astrid Bos (astrid.bos@wur.nl) or visit the webpage.
For more information on the CSA@WUR network please contact csa.wur@wur.nl.