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UN Declares 2013 to be the International Year of Quinoa Imagine there is this two time Oscar winner, supermodel, been-there-done-that model-actress. She's already reached the pinnacles of success. The entire world recognizes her and applauds her beauty and talent. And after that she wins the Miss World title. Seems away from time to me. Really should have come a few years earlier. It is precisely what I realized initially when I first heard the U . N . had declared 2013 to be the International Year of Quinoa. All things considered, quinoa now hardly needs any recognition. The world already recognizes quinoa's benefits, quinoa nutrition as well as the sheer flexibility of the grain. The UN now recognizing quinoa is quite late. Though not meaningless. A recognition by UN could go quite some distance making quinoa globally acceptable. Quinoa today is really more of an Oscar winner who is globally applauded by the classes for her talents. We should instead bring it to the level of the supermodel lining the walls of each and every cupboard in a teenage dorm. Quinoa's Limited Popularity and ways in which UN's recognition can change it Quinoa today is actually a celebrated grain, being idolized by everyone worth a presence. However, the buzz is geographically limited to the developed part of the world. The countries beyond America and Europe have still not adapted quinoa widely. Large tracts of China, India and the South-East Parts of asia are yet to embrace quinoa how they have embraced McDonald's. And that's how the UN recognition will help. It is also the way in which the UN is going over it that has class written all around it. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the apex body in charge of such initiatives, started off in 2012 by appointing President Evo Morales of Bolivia as the Special Ambassador for the International Year of Quinoa. The appointment of Morales is significant because he himself is a former quinoa farmer. Morales launched the year in New York. He was accompanied by the First Lady of Peru, Nadine Heredia, who promotes the conventional Andean diet to combat infant malnutrition. Quinoa is significant for UN as well as the FAO recognizes the life-sustaining seed to achieve the potential to promote food security and poverty eradication, cut malnutrition and boost biodiversity. It's also UN's nod to the aborigines of Andean plateaus who've preserved quinoa through traditional knowledge and practices handed down over the ages. UN's theme for the year - “A future sown thousands of years ago” - resonates the idea “We want the whole world to get to understand it,” states Alan Bojanic, Deputy Regional Representative in the FAO Regional Latin America and also the Caribbean Office stated in a news report on U . N . News Centre. However, he indicated that quite some people had questioned the UN's decision in order to provide quinoa its own year. Why 2013and the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) UN's recognition of quinoa as a wonder seed that's got the ability to reduce malnutrition and promote food security becomes a lot more significant in light of its Millennium Development Goal. As per the objective, the UN targets to lessen the proportion of hungry people around the world by half by 2015. The organization knows that they are lagging behind in their efforts to obtain the target and countries really need to step up. Quinoa offers hope. And we are already in 2013. So it is a now-or-never gamble by the UN. If ever the organization achieves an increase in rise in popularity of the seed during the year, it would help significantly in getting the MDG target. The flexibility of quinoa to grow in adverse conditions gives UN its rays of hope. “This crop could be grown under extremely tough conditions like semi-arid, at high altitudes, sea level, devoid of fertilizer. It’s an incredible crop in terms of the adaptability it has to stressful environments,” Mr. Bojanic further said. Quinoa is hardy. It thrives in temperatures from -8 degrees Celsius to 38 degrees Celsius, at sea level or 4,000 meters or more, and isn't influenced by droughts or poor soils. This adaptability makes quinoa potentially viable for areas with regular droughts, like the Sahel Region - including Senegal, Chad, Niger and Mauritania - where many people are in need of emergency food aid and malnutrition is rampant. Additionally, it means that regions which are considered adverse for pretty much some other crop have the opportunity growing quinoa. Challenges on the way As ironical as it may sound, UN will be successful in its mission as long as it is able to lower the global reliance on Bolivia-Peru for the world's quinoa supplies. For the seed to become accepted worldwide, it must be grown in most other regions across the globe. However, we are now far from that nevertheless the UN's initiative might help. Mr. Bojanic, who also functions as the Secretary for the International Year of Quinoa’s Secretariat, stated that quinoa “is starting out be taken up by countries that could not have looked into having it some time ago.” Those include Canada, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands and more significantly names like China, India, Kenya and Morocco. However, the initiatives are still limited by undertaking agronomic trials towards commercial production of quinoa. Presently, we are over-reliant on Bolivia and Peru for the global availability of quinoa. Based on FAO data, Bolivia and Peru account for over fifty percent of the annual 70,000 tons output of quinoa, with the United States accountable for about 7,000 tons and France close behind. Price - the serious challenge UN's initiative becomes even more significant considering the latest spurts in the prices of quinoa. Within the last decade, prices have spurted from under $70 per tonne to $2000 per tonne currently. This is an average annual growth of nearly 40%, higher than the global average food inflation. Not exactly something that bodes well for global food security if half the world's population cannot afford While this has bought cheer to the farmers in Bolivia who are seeing a surge in their prosperity levels, this is certainly not sustainable. And that is where UN's making 2013 the year of quinoa becomes very significant. A wider geographical reach of the seed will control prices, keeping the UN's food security initiative on target. 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