The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has dubbed 2013 'year of qunioa'. FAO leaders said the South Amercian cereal can play an important role in eradicating hunger, malnutrition and poverty at the official launch of the International Year of Quinoa at UN Headquarters on Wednesday 20th February.

Quinoa, grown in the Andes, is a highly nutritious and adaptable cereal crop, hailed as a "super food". Quinoa is the only plant food that has all the essential amino acids, trace elements and vitamins, and also has the ability to adapt to different ecological environments and climates. Resistant to drought, poor soils and high salinity, it can be grown from sea level to an altitude of four thousand meters and can withstand temperatures between -8 and 38 degrees Celsius.

FAO chief José Graziano da Silva said the grain may be able to help people struggling in food insecure regions. He said that, in Kenya and Mali the crop is already showing high yields and initial FAO studies indicate that quinoa production could also take off in the Himalayas, the plains of northern India, the Sahel, Yemen and other arid regions of the world to bolster food security efforts.

Although some commentators have suggested that the increased attention given to quinoa may be inhibiting its consumption where the cereal is principally grown, as Andean peoples who formerly ate quinoa can no longer afford it, Tom Philpott, writing in The Guardian last month assured, "Unlike other southern-hemisphere commodities prized in the global north, like coffee and cocoa, quinoa, for the most part, isn't grown on big plantations owned by a powerful elite." He said that "Today, by all accounts, the crop remains a financial success for Andean smallholders," but warned the effects of complicated social and economic shifts have led to decreasing consumption in Bolivia and Peru.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday, "This extraordinary grain has been a cultural anchor and a staple in the diet of millions of people throughout the Andes for thousands of years. Quinoa is now poised for global recognition." He added that the plant's potential for reducing hunger lies not only in its nutritional value, but also because most quinoa is currently produced by smallholder farmers.

Quinoa was of great nutritional importance to pre-Colombian Andean civilizations, second only to the potato. Traditionally, quinoa grains are roasted and then made into flour for bread. It can also be cooked, added to soups, used as a cereal, as pasta and even fermented into beer or chicha, the traditional drink of the Andes.

The UN International Year of Quinoa follows on from the Year of the Cooperative, as 2012 was dubbed.