In the modern world, barley has had two roles: malting barley, used in the brewing industry, and subsistence barley, used as food and feed in the poorer areas. But that could be changing. And a partnership between ICARDA, the Ecuadorean national research program, farmers, private industry and even television is helping to bring about the change.
In Ecuador and Peru, barley food products are appearing in urban supermarkets. For Ecuador, it means less reliance on wheat imports, better, cheaper food for the urban population, and more cash in farmers' pockets.
Dr Hugo Vivar, Coordinator of ICARDA's Latin America Regional Program (LARP), noticed the change about three years ago through his work with the Ecuadorean national program, INIAP (Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria). For a number of years, ICARDA, through LARP, has been breeding and supplying new barley lines which are high-yielding and resistant to pests and diseases, and working with the national programs to implement suitable agronomic packages for those lines. Dr Vivar runs his breeding program in collaboration with ICARDA's sister Center, CIMMYT,* which is based in Mexico.
"INIAP's researchers and extensionists told me that they wanted white-kernelled aleurone barley, instead of blue. I was surprised, because it makes little difference in subsistence farming. Who wanted white barley? "Industry," they said. "What industry?" he wondered. And they told him of the embryonic barley-products industry.
He went to visit two small industries. One was La Pradera, a small company with perhaps 10 employees, but very modern equipment, based at Salcedo in Cotopaxi province. The company explained that blue barley made barley flour look moldy when seen in a plastic bag in a supermarket.
"In the past, barley as food was associated with high, remote mountains and poverty," says Dr Vivar. "You'd never have found it in a supermarket in the capital. But with rural-urban migration, people who have come to the cities do want these products. They're familiar, and they're cheaper than, say, white bread or Quaker Oats.
"The change is a good thing for several reasons. First of all, large areas have been driven out of wheat production because of the challenge from imported wheat, but the rising urban demand for barley means it's economic to bring this land back into production- for barley. This means a better living for farmers, putting cash in their pockets but without wrecking the subsistence base. After all, they still depend heavily on barley themselves. This is also happening in Peru. Second, it helps the national balance of payments. It doesn't reduce the import bill by very much, but it can only be good. And third, it has nutritional benefits."
This last factor, especially, caught Dr Vivar's attention. His profession, besides running LARP, is breeding barley. His hobby is collecting barley recipes. When La Pradera heard this, it at once asked him for some. He supplied them; and put La Pradera in touch with INIAP, whose nutritionist, Dr Espin, was interested. She decided to run a workshop for women on cooking barley products, taking recipes Dr Vivar had collected from a number of sources, including Northern Europe and Japan, to see if they would be suitable for local tastes.
It was not just women from the high mountains, or Cordillera, who would benefit, said Dr Espin; in large coastal cities like Guayaquil for example, people eat a lot of barley 'rice'. The barley is pearled, chopped into small pieces and cooked. So the idea of barley products isn't new. (Neither was the idea of compiling barley recipes; INIAP's own Elena Villacres had already started this work.)
The three-day course, which was financed by the German aid organization GTZ, took place at Santa Catalina research station, near the Ecuadorean capital, Quito, in early 1996. The participants, 25 in all, were respected figures in small rural communities and workers from the social services, for example orphanages.
One thing led to another. During the course, the women had fun with the barley recipes. New dishes were created. Ecuadorean television was intrigued, and ran a number of programs on the recipes on a popular daytime cookery show. And La Pradera, pleased with the implications for their products, paid for part of the printing of 1000 copies of a booklet of recipes.
Dr Vivar is pleased too. "I'm used to raising barley production to grow food, rather than making food increase barley production. But we'll get more land back into production, raise nutritional levels in the city, bring cash to the countryside and perhaps even see a growing labor market in food processing. Moreover, if farmers have cash income from the crop, they can start using fertilizer. The majority don't now.
"It's also a story of partnership. There's the international research organization, ICARDA; the national program, INIAP; the people, testing novel recipes; the media, giving instruction through entertainment; and last but not least, industry, in this case La Pradera, which is playing a key role. I think this development is going to continue."