Having your crops be too valuable to eat is a good problem to have; these farmers incomes have more than sextupled. That easily lets them sell the crop and buy other food like everyone else.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/americas/20bolivia.h...
An interesting parallel in urban environments in more developed countries is the phenomenon of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert - malnutrition can occur even when families have enough money to avoid it.
It turns out many subsistence farmers (of which there are roughly a billion) are net consumers of their staple crop. In order to survive, the poor diversify across a variety of agricultural products. Large industrial farming operations are growing the rest of the rice/maize ... and I'm guessing quinoa.
So, if the same pattern holds here, farmers consume more quinoa than they sell, and suffer when prices go up.
Unless there are other foods they can buy which are cheaper. Then they benefit from the higher prices and don't pay them.
If the price of the staple increases dramatically, can't they shift towards eating other crops (that they were previously net producers of)?
Again, those other crops are likely more expensive per calorie. That means there is no mix of consumption that will get them the same amount of calories they previously consumed, which for subsistence farmers will often mean malnutrition if not starvation.
In terms of effort required to grow those crops, or in terms of market price? If they're growing the crops in order to eat them, the market price isn't relevant (except that if those other crops are expensive on the market, they can sell those for a profit, too).
I mean, I'm not saying taxation is the only way it's easier for others to get their hands on your crops if the crops are bought and sold... but it's one of the more clear examples.
The only possible explanation would be that the resources (farming equipment, seeds, fertilizer?) required to grow the crop go up in price as the price of the crop does - in which case, blame the suppliers of these resources.
1. Farmers used to have 100-200 acres apiece. At that point you can feed a family even with very low yields. There were few (if any) large-scale farming operations for them to buy from, anyway.
2. Each generation, the farmer would divide the land up amongst his sons.
3. Fast-forward to today, farmers have more like 2 acres, and with traditional farming techniques don't have enough yield to feed their families.
4. They make up the difference with cattle, chickens, beans, odd jobs - or don't make up the difference, as malnutrition and starvation are a constant problem. But if they make enough money, there is a national maize market to buy from, which previously there wasn't. Hence, they're net maize consumers.
"subsistence farmers are net consumers of their staple crop. In order to survive, the poor diversify across a variety of agricultural products"
I don't understand the downvotes for the parent. They are growing other products, or have cash from other activities, and use this to buy the staple they can't grow. If price of staple rises and price of other products and services does not, they can't afford to do this. The beneficiaries are large industrial farmers of the staple. Did I miss something?
If there is in fact a problem (and I do question its existence), I believe lukasb is looking for it in the wrong place.
Now, farmers are selling quinoa to foreigners, so the farmers are making more money, but everyone else is paying more for food.
One solution would be to impose some sort of tax, to share the windfall quinoa profits with the former customers, or cooperative community ownership of the farms. Or farmers spending their increased profits on the labors of other locals in the community.
[citation needed].
It feels weird that local food is exported as a cash crop, and other food is imported.
They can grow quinoa and eat the seeds or export them and import a more diverse diet.
Even if other countries can cultivate quinoa, it may make sense for Andeans to export their quinoa and import other foods.
So the citation you are looking for is the bunch of sentences before the one you quote.
* which sounds a little bit like an open question "am I wrong ?" type.