SELECTED CASE STUDIES ON THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE MEDITERRANEAN AND SURROUNDING REGIONS Quinoa value chain, adoption, and market assessment in Morocco Sifeddine Rafik 1 & Meriem Chaoui 2 & Yassin Assabban 2 & Salima Jazi 2 & Redouane Choukr-Allah 3 & Mohamed El Gharouss 1 & Abdelaziz Hirich 4 Received: 5 May 2020 /Accepted: 21 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Agriculture faces many challenges such as climate change, droughts, and salinity, which requires urgent interventions for fast adaptation and diversification of the sector. In this context, introduction of new crops that tolerate stresses and generate high added value such as quinoa would allow simultaneously to address two interlinked challenges: abiotic stresses that limit agricultural production and poverty that impacts negatively the rural people. The quinoa Rehamna project funded by the International Development Research Centre aims to contribute to the development the quinoa value chain toward achieving food and nutritional security of rural poor communities. The obtained results from the farmer’s survey show that 14% of surveyed farmers already grow quinoa and 2/3 never heard about quinoa, among them 96% are interested to grow quinoa. The marketing study reveals that the psychological price that satisfies most of consumers is ranging between 2 and 2.6 USD/500 g of processed quinoa seeds. The findings indicate that quinoa has a great potential for both producers and consumers in Morocco and can be a judicious solution toward achieving food and nutritional security. Keywords Psychological price . Nutrition . Marketing . Morocco . Rehamna . Gluten-free Introduction Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd) originated from Latin America, a crop with a range of climate condition require- ments, with different varieties adapted to different agro- climatic conditions. Some quinoa genotypes are tolerant to extreme drought, suggesting resilience to this unfavorable fac- tor (Tapia 1997). Other varieties are adapted to more humid conditions. The nutritional value of quinoa, its resistance, its great adaptability, and its multiple uses consist of a great in- terest toward this crop not only in Latin America but also worldwide. The permanent global increase in demand for qui- noa is not covered by the increase in production in the Andean countries alone. The importing countries (USA, Europe) have therefore started production, and today other non-importing countries are also starting to produce quinoa (Bazile et al. 2016a). Quinoa production can greatly contribute to food se- curity because of key aspects related to quinoa, such as the low inputs and cost of its production, its adaptation and resil- ience to extreme and varied conditions, and mainly its nutri- tional value (Bazile et al. 2016b). Quinoa can provide a rich and nutritious diet, particularly in areas where the production of other nutritious crops is not always possible or limited because of stress factors (Jacobsen 2003). In Andean region, countries have increased their exportation in terms of quinoa without affecting local food security as local quinoa consump- tion has also been increased due to high augmentation in local production (Bazile 2016).The cultivation of quinoa in the Andean countries involves a hereditary access to communal lands, and it allows the self-sufficiency of local populations, which is completely different from the sale of their labor force Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues * Abdelaziz Hirich abdelaziz.hirich@um6p.ma 1 Agricultural Innovation and Technology Transfer Center (AITTC), Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Ben Guerir, Morocco 2 National School of Commerce and Management, Settat, Morocco 3 Hassan II Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine, Rabat, Morocco 4 African Sustainable Agriculture Research Institute (ASARI), Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Laayoune, Morocco Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11375-x