On November 13, reporters learned from Tianzhu County, Gansu Province that the (national) Food Industry Productivity Promotion Center has officially awarded Tianzhu County the title of “China’s plateau quinoa capital”.
Tianzhu County is located at the eastern end of Mt. Qilian and is a junction for the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, Loess plateau, and Inner Mongolian plateau. The climate there is cold; the soil has moderate acidity and alkalinity, and the sunshine is very intense. These provide good conditions for growing quinoa, which is cold-, drought- and salt-resistant. Now, Tianzhu County has begun to implement a “planting + scientific research + processing + tourism” model and an “enterprise + cooperative + base + farmers” mechanism, and has developed and stored a series of high value-added products and technologies together with research institutions across the country. In 2018, 33,800 mu (1 mu = 0.165 acres) of quinoa were planted in Tianzhu County, with an output of 150 to 250 kilograms per mu. There are 486 varieties of quinoa planted, which is 90 percent of the world’s total varieties.
"As the oldest daughter in my family of five girls, my family has only asked me to do one th...