Techno-economic assessment of quinoa production and transformation in Morocco

Agriculture is facing many challenges as climate change, drought, and salinity which call for urgent interventions to fast adaptation and diversification such as the introduction of new climate smart and stress tolerant crops such as quinoa. This study aims to introduce new high yielding quinoa cultivars conducted under several agronomic practices (rainfed, irrigation, and organic amendment) and to assess the technical and economic aspects related to quinoa seed production, transformation, and quality. Results obtained from agronomic trials clearly showed that International Center for Biosaline Agriculture cultivars recorded higher yields than locally cultivated seeds. Irrigation and organic amendment had a tremendous effect on quinoa productivity as it increased most of cultivar's yield by more than three times compared with rainfed conditions. Production cost analysis showed that using mechanized production and processing practices combined with irrigation and organic amendment can reduce seed production and processing cost from 2.8 to 1.2 USD kg(-1) compared with manual production system under rainfed conditions. The diagnosis of the quinoa transformation pathways revealed different transformation levels, and the production cost increased with the level of transformation due to high cost of labor and raw material. Analysis of quinoa seeds showed that macronutrient content is mostly not affected by pearling process, while micronutrients content was significantly decreased in processed seeds. In addition, total saponin content was reduced to an acceptable level after using mechanical pearling compared with manual abrasion.