Emma McDonell, an IU Ph.D. student and member of IU CASEL, was quoted in the PBS Nova article, "Could vodka, chips, and dairy-free milk products safeguard Peru’s agricultural diversity?" The article, by Virginia Gewin, discusses Peru's wealth of agricultural riches long maintained by farmers—among the world's poorest—in the high-altitude Andes. Efforts to value their stewardship are underway.
McDonell, who studies the quinoa market’s boom-bust power dynamics, questions the “markets solve everything” narrative. "The harsh reality, she says, is that while hundreds of varieties have unique, valuable traits, many just aren’t marketable. 'We need to complicate this rather simple story that to save agrobiodiversity, we need to make it marketable,' she says. 'It’s a lot messier of a problem than that.'"