The Government and quinoa producers agree on the need to implement scientific and technological innovation in grain production to cope with the effects of climate change and with the long-term goal of giving the sector the impetus necessary for Bolivia to improve its export levels (recover its leadership in foreign markets).
Innovation in production is one of the most important conclusions reached by the sectors that gathered at the Meeting of Dialogues of Knowledge, Ancestral and Cultural Knowledge, held Thursday and Friday in La Paz; The event is part of the preparatory process of the VIII World Quinoa Congress, which will take place in 2023 and will be held in Potosí.
Shirley Rojas Ledezma, national director of innovation of the National Institute for Agricultural and Forestry Innovation (INIAF), one of the organizers of the Saberes Meeting, informed the ABI that among the actions and innovations to be applied in the production of quinoa there is fertilization to deal with the effects of climate change.
“We must influence fertilization, not let our golden grain have to survive alone, we must start helping it, as the effects of climate change are generating a decline in production and we must influence fertilization, in re-evaluating our knowledge dialogue of our producers,” he explained.
Rojas argued that, although producers are “walking libraries”, due to the great knowledge they possess, it is necessary to “do the math” and help them deal with climate change.
“The first rains that we came after, in these periods it rained, now it hasn’t, all these details show us that the investigation must go hand in hand with our brother producer,” said Rojas.
He stressed that scientific conferences, such as the one that took place this week, should highlight the complementarity between the productive sector and the scientific sector of the state.
On the side of the producers, Moisés Josue, part of the National Council of Quinoa Producers of Bolivia (Conapquibol), who also participated in the Saberes Meeting, explained that the variations due to climate change affect them “a lot”; For example, the rains that delay or arrive in different seasons, or the frost that kills the quinoa plant, reducing its production.
“With financial resources, we can do the necessary studies with the International Quinoa Center (CIQ) to modify the seed and make it resistant to frost, for example; it’s part of the challenges we have,” Josue explained to ABI.
He added that there is also a need to innovate in production technology as the sector currently works with heavy machinery from the 1980s, which also damages the soil, and that this is another aspect they want to improve.
Source: Bolivian Information Agency (ABI)
