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Bolivian royal quinoa, high-altitude organic
Global Rare Foods & Ingredients

Bolivian royal quinoa, high-altitude organic

Large-grain Quinoa Real grown by Aymara and Quechua farmers on the world's highest arable plains.

OriginAltiplano, Bolivia
Indian subcontinentNo
CategoryGlobal Rare Foods & Ingredients
Retail price band$$ ($4–$9 per lb organic retail)
Bulk / trade price bandBulk organic-certified export: indicative $1,800–$3,200/MT FOB, subject to volatile post-2013 boom/bust pricing cycles
Sourcing statusDossier researched from public sources — producer contact not yet established
Compliance statusPreliminary review complete (see below) — not yet legally verified
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Dossier researched, photography pending. The sections below are drawn from the cited public sources. This is desk research, not yet verified by direct producer contact or legal counsel — treat pricing, compliance and provenance detail as a working draft for due diligence, not a final trade sheet.

Detailed study

Quinoa Real ('Royal Quinoa') is a distinct large-grain Chenopodium quinoa variety grown almost exclusively in Bolivia's Intersalar region, prized for its bigger seed size, higher saponin content (requiring rinsing) and superior nutritional density versus standard quinoa varieties grown elsewhere.

Provenance & producer

Cultivated on the Altiplano between the Uyuni and Coipasa salt flats at 3,600–4,000+ m, an extreme environment of high salinity, intense UV, aridity and wide temperature swings, by Aymara and Quechua smallholder farmers using traditional rotational and organic-by-default dryland farming methods passed down for centuries.

Market & pricing

Global quinoa demand surged after the FAO's 2013 'International Year of Quinoa' campaign, tripling farm-gate prices between 2006–2013 before a subsequent price collapse as other countries scaled up cultivation; Bolivia remains a leading exporter, with EU, US and increasingly Asian health-food markets as primary buyers, and 'Quinoa Real' marketed as a premium single-origin tier.

Compliance & export

Much Bolivian quinoa export is USDA Organic and/or EU organic certified, and Fair Trade certification is common given smallholder cooperative structures; Bolivia has pursued denomination-of-origin recognition for Quinoa Real, and export requires standard SENASAG (Bolivian agricultural health service) phytosanitary certification. Not CITES-listed.

Sources

Image status

A working reference photograph is in place, captured from a freely-licensed Wikimedia Commons source (File:Chenopodium quinoa - Köhler–s Medizinal-Pflanzen-057.jpg). Chenopodium quinoa (red faro), MHNT.BOT.2007.43.66, herbarium specimen, Roger Culos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Treat this as a placeholder for marketing purposes: exact licence terms should be re-verified on the Commons file page, and original producer photography is recommended before final trade use.