Processing facility could make quinoa viable in East Idaho

A Driggs, Idaho, farmer has covered a funding shortfall to launch a locally based, commercial-scale quinoa processing facility, enticed by the promise of a new crop in his challenging growing area.  The processing facility — which the owner, Jeremiah Clark, believes to be the first operation in the U.S. to process quinoa for commercial sale — opened on Oct. 21.  Farming in a cool area at 6,400 feet, Wyatt Penfold has relied on a crop rotation of mostly seed potatoes and barley. For the past two years, however, he’s had good luck with raising quinoa for Clark.  “It’s a great crop for cooler climates like we have,” Penfold said. “We’re just trying to support it because it’s a great opportunity for people in our part of the world to have another crop to grow.”  Endemic to the Andean region of South America, quinoa is a gluten-free grain touted as a “super food” due to its high nutritional content. According to trade figures cited by Clark, the U.S. imported 55 percent of the 2015 global quinoa production, which totaled 108,000 metric tons.