Dispatch #47
Read about Bolivia's quinoa boom, vanishing livelihoods in Romania's Danube Delta and AI in Spanish healthcare.
Hello and welcome to Translator’s weekly Dispatch, where we bring you summaries of compelling stories written beyond the Anglosphere.
In our first Dispatch for the year, from Bolivia, we revisit the rise and collapse of the global quinoa boom. Once hailed as a development miracle, quinoa briefly transformed rural livelihoods before overproduction, land degradation, and market volatility left farming communities exposed and poorer than before.
From the Danube Delta, we cover local reporting on a slow disappearance. Europe’s largest wetland is being emptied of its fishermen as poaching networks, local monopolies, and state neglect hollow out both an ecosystem and a way of life that has endured for generations.
And from Spain, we look at how Artificial Intelligence is reshaping public healthcare. As algorithms enter clinics and hospitals with revolutionary promises of increased efficiency and early diagnosis, doctors and patients confront a less rosy picture of change and a new set of challenges
P.S.: In the meantime, tell us what you like and dislike, themes you’d like to see explored from the perspective of different linguistic media landscapes. And, as ever, feel free to recommend specific pieces we should summarise for our Dispatches, or translate in full for the magazine.
Here’s what we’re looking for and how to let us know.
The quinoa bubble
For a moment the global quinoa boom enriched Bolivian farmers before collapsing into overproduction, environmental damage, and economic hardship
For thousands of years, wind has carried salt from the Bolivian desert to the Altiplano plateau. The Aymara, indigenous to the region, call this wind the Wayra. At four thousand metres above sea level, it plays a vital role in sustaining life on Bolivia’s barren soil – most notably the nation’s pride: quinoa. These tiny grains have provided the Aymara with essential vitamins, minerals, and proteins for millennia. Without quinoa, survival in these harsh conditions would have been impossible.
The German magazine Datum examines how the sudden worldwide enthusiasm for the “superfood” quinoa made poor Bolivian farmers wealthy – until supply exceeded demand and global market prices collapsed. Quinoa is a pseudocereal rich in trace elements, vitamins, and proteins, containing all nine essential amino acids required by humans. Long before it became a trend in Western health food stores, it was a cornerstone of life on the Altiplano.
“Quinoa gives, but it also takes a lot from you,” says Silvestre Panama, a farmer from the town of Salinas de Garcí Mendoza, which calls itself the “Quinoa Capital”. He explains the laborious production process: after harvesting, the plants are laid out in bundles to dry in the sun, stacked into chest-high pyramids. Once dry, the seeds are threshed from the stalks and sifted to remove dust, stones, and weed seeds. To make quinoa edible, it must then be thoroughly washed to remove saponins – the word is derived from the Latin word for soap – bitter substances that protect the plant from fungal infections during growth. The work is physically demanding, but it is a tradition that has endured for over 7,000 years.
During the colonial era, Spanish rulers forbade indigenous peoples from cultivating quinoa in an attempt to weaken them. The conquistadors saw no commercial value in what they dismissively called “Indian food” and chose not to introduce it to Europe. As a result, quinoa remained largely unknown outside the Andes for more than 400 years. This changed in the 1990s, when NASA scientists identified quinoa as an ideal crop for space missions due to its nutritional value.
Between 2000 and 2008, a global hype around quinoa emerged. The price of a ton of unhulled quinoa rose by 600 percent. The boom was further fuelled by Evo Morales, an Aymara native born into a family of quinoa farmers. Morales served as president of Bolivia for nearly 14 years and remains a polarizing figure. He described quinoa as a “gift of the Andes to the world” and invested in road construction across the remote Altiplano to improve transport logistics as prices skyrocketed. In 2012, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations appointed Morales as a Special Ambassador, and in 2013 it declared the “International Year of Quinoa.”
By 2013, Bolivia was producing more than 63,000 tonnes of quinoa – roughly twice as much as in 2010. For small farmers, selling prices increased more than tenfold. Quinoa became “worth its weight in gold.” Many farmers sold their entire harvest and switched to cheaper foods such as potatoes, rice, or pasta for their own consumption. Others sold their llamas or went into debt to buy land, purchase tractors, or hire workers, convinced that the boom would last.
Within a few years, Bolivia doubled its quinoa cultivation area. Quinoa was now grown on more than 120,000 square kilometres – almost as large as Austria and Switzerland combined. Suddenly, families that had long lived in poverty could afford cars and send their children to school. Yet the boom had serious consequences. Many farmers abandoned organic practices in favour of conventional monocultures using pesticides to increase yields. Land that had traditionally been cultivated only every second year was now used continuously. The soil became depleted, and artificial fertilisers were increasingly required to maintain productivity.
At the same time, neighbouring Peru expanded its production. In 2014, it overtook Bolivia as the world’s leading quinoa exporter. By 2022, Peru had doubled its quinoa sales and secured a dominant position on the global market. Together with Ecuador, the three Andean nations now supply more than 90 percent of global demand. A UN appeal also encouraged farmers in other regions, including the USA, Canada, China, India, Australia, and Kenya, to grow quinoa. Today, it is cultivated in around 90 countries worldwide.
As production expanded rapidly, global prices collapsed and have remained stagnant ever since. Supply had clearly outpaced demand. In Bolivia, many farmers were left not only with unsold quinoa but also with significant debt. Their soils were eroded and exhausted. The dream of a golden crop had burst.
Environmental pressures have only worsened the situation. Besides increasing pest infestations, Silvestre Panama describes increasingly unpredictable weather: too much rain or too little, and freezing nights that are now even too harsh for quinoa. On especially cold nights, he lights small fires around his fields so that the smoke and warmth prevent the soil from freezing. Climate change is taking a visible toll on the Altiplano. “It’s not like it used to be,” he says. “We can’t rely on the weather anymore.” In 2023, Bolivia was hit by alternating droughts and torrential rains.
“Quinoa alone isn’t enough to survive anymore,” Panama sighs.
This article was originally written in German by Martin Zinggi, published as ‘Die Quinoa-Blase’ in Datum on 2 December 2025.
It is available here.
Datum is an Austrian magazine focused on reporting and opinion analysis related to European politics and culture. It is published and edited in Vienna.
Summary by TMH.
The vanishing fishermen of the Danube Delta
How poaching, monopolies, and institutional failure are emptying Europe’s largest wetland
If you walk along one of the small ports in the villages of the Danube Delta, you might still see fishermen preparing their pots and nets before heading out onto the water. Yet this way of life is under threat. Villages that were once vibrant are slowly emptying, as fishing disappears from the Delta – the largest and best-preserved wetland in Europe.
Often described as Europe’s Amazon, the Danube Delta is vital to the continent’s biodiversity, home to hundreds of species of fish and birds. However, an investigative report by the Romanian outlet Snoop reveals how poaching, local monopolies controlled by boat owners, and institutional failure are destroying the fisheries that have sustained local communities for generations.
“In the Danube Delta, the life of fishing hangs by a thread, between poachers, monopolists and inefficient institutions,” write journalists Matei Bărbulescu and Andrei Petre. In May, they travelled to the Delta to speak directly with fishermen, whose testimonies paint a bleak picture: both fish stocks and fishing communities are nearing extinction. State institutions, understaffed, poorly equipped, and ineffective, have failed to protect the ecosystem or meaningfully support those who depend on it.
Ștefan Pimon, 55, comes from a family with four generations of fishermen in the village of Lipoveni. “I was baptised in this water. We, Lipovans, were born with these waves, this sunrise, this wind. If we don’t have water, we are no longer us,” he says. Since 2009, many fishermen have left the Delta: “There were about 250 of us. Now there are about 45 left.”
Young people, seeing little future at home, have taken their skills abroad. Today, the average fisherman in the Delta is between 48 and 50 years old. While older fishermen continue to pull their nets in hopes of covering fuel and equipment costs, younger generations leave for Ireland, Denmark, or Scotland. “Every two months they come back with eight, ten, twelve thousand euros,” says Ștefan Unguru, known locally as Nea Fănică. By contrast, those who stay earn around 1,200 lei per month (roughly GBP £200) well below the poverty line.
Nea Fănică remembers a different era. “There was so much fish you could feed a pig,” he recalls, listing cod, mackerel, turbot, anchovy, sturgeon, and sprat. While there is still enough fish to survive, the industry is stacked against fishermen. He sells fish for 2 lei per kilogram; by the time it reaches the market, the price can rise to 25 lei. In 2016, he could sell carp for 50 lei; today, he receives barely two. As the report notes, “The fishermen of Jurilovca are not asking for miracles – they are asking to sell their fish at a price that allows them to live decently.”
Poaching is another major threat. Pimon recalls losing six nets to poachers, a loss of 6,000 lei. “I was happy with 800 lei from a catfish, and 6,000 was gone in a second,” he says. Although illegal, poaching continues unchecked. Its impact extends beyond fishermen’s livelihoods: indiscriminate methods kill young fish immediately, and surviving larger fish often lose their ability to reproduce, accelerating ecological collapse.
Climate change compounds these pressures. Weather patterns have become erratic and seasons increasingly unpredictable. Fish, misled by rising temperatures, now lay eggs at the wrong time; winter freezes then destroy entire generations. For already depleted populations, this adds yet another layer of strain.
Instead of relief, fishermen face mounting bureaucracy. “Every year they ask us for one more paper,” says Nicu, a fisherman who helps others navigate the administrative maze. Permits must be kept dry and intact on boats, despite constant exposure to water. Nicu volunteers his time to handle paperwork so fishermen don’t lose income travelling back and forth to offices.
What frustrates him most, however, is the lack of unity among fishermen themselves. He believes collective organising could give them leverage and a political voice. “People need to wake up,” he says. “What’s happening here is a mirror of what’s happening everywhere.”
Snoop’s investigation exposes a system in which fishermen are trapped by overlapping crises: monopolised markets, rampant poaching, bureaucratic paralysis, and accelerating environmental decline. Together, these forces are not only emptying the nets – but erasing an entire way of life from the Danube Delta.
This article was originally written in Romanian by Matei Bărbulescu and Andrei Petre, and was published as ‘Braconaj, monopoluri și eșec instituțional: pescuitul dispare din Delta Dunării’ by Snoop on 15 November, 2025,
It is available here.
Snoop is an independent, non-profit, investigative media outlet based in Bucharest, Romania. It specialises in public-interest investigative and explanatory journalism, often focusing on corruption and social issues.
Summary by TMH.
When your doctor is an algorithm
How AI is quietly reshaping Spanish healthcare
Artificial Intelligence is no longer a future prospect in Spanish healthcare. It is already examining patients, prioritising cases, and shaping diagnoses, often without patients’ explicit knowledge. This investigation for Civio traces how AI systems are being introduced across public hospitals, focusing on ophthalmology as a revealing test case, and asks whether putative technological efficiency is coming at the cost of transparency, actual effectiveness, and human judgement.
The article opens with a first-person encounter at Madrid’s La Paz University Hospital, where one of the authors undergoes an eye exam conducted almost entirely by an AI-powered diagnostic booth called Eyelib. In under ten minutes, the system takes more than a hundred measurements using automated instructions. Only afterwards does the patient learn that the exam relied on AI. Eyelib, distributed under the brand DORIA, has cost the hospital over €1.2 million through public contracts and has been operating in several specialist centres since early 2024.
Hospital administrators argue that such systems are a necessary response to crisis conditions. Waiting lists in ophthalmology ballooned after the pandemic, and Eyelib was introduced to process large volumes of patients quickly. Yet official data from the Madrid Health Service undermines this promise. Since Eyelib’s introduction, both patient numbers and waiting times at La Paz have slightly worsened, raising doubts about whether automation is solving the problem it was meant to address.
Medical professionals themselves are divided. Some acknowledge the technical thoroughness of AI-driven exams but question their efficiency and cost. Critics note that each AI-generated report must still be reviewed and signed off by a specialist, pushing costs higher rather than lowering them. In Eyelib’s case, estimates place the cost per patient at around €80, before human oversight is factored in. Others point out that the system often sees fewer patients than a trained ophthalmologist working directly.
Beyond ophthalmology, the article maps the rapid expansion of AI across Spain’s health system. Algorithms are now used to analyse medical images in radiology and dermatology, assist in radiotherapy planning, manage surgical workflows, prioritise emergency patients, and even conduct follow-up calls with cancer patients via conversational chatbots. Some of these tools are publicly developed, while others are supplied by private companies in partnership with pharmaceutical firms, blurring the line between public care and outsourced technology.
Supporters argue that AI can genuinely improve outcomes. Faster imaging could reduce the need to sedate children during scans. Early detection tools may catch diseases before symptoms worsen. Health officials insist these systems are meant to complement, not replace, medical professionals.
The article highlights a core technical risk: algorithms can appear highly accurate while relying on flawed correlations. Researchers recount how a system trained to detect COVID-19 pneumonia from X-rays initially seemed nearly perfect, until they discovered it was “diagnosing” based on whether patients were hunched over, not on lung pathology. Such errors, if unnoticed, could have serious consequences in real clinical settings.
Other failures have already occurred. A medication chatbot launched by Spain’s medicines’ agency was suspended after giving nonsensical answers, recommending unsafe dosages, and confusing everyday phrases with medical advice. A separate AI system designed to help diagnose rare diseases failed entirely when tested with a real patient’s long-documented condition. These cases illustrate how poorly supervised tools can create new risks rather than reduce existing ones.
Finally, the article confronts the unresolved question of responsibility. If an algorithm makes a harmful mistake, who is accountable? European rules require human oversight of high-risk AI systems, but in practice, professionals are often asked to validate machine decisions after the fact. This creates pressure to defer to the algorithm rather than challenge it. While compensation is theoretically possible, consumer advocates argue that patients are unlikely even to know AI played a role in their care.
The piece paints a picture of a healthcare system embracing AI faster than it can regulate, understand, or properly scrutinise it. The promise of efficiency is real, but so are the dangers of opacity, overconfidence, and misplaced trust.
This article was originally published in Spanish as ‘Cuando tu médica es una IA’ by Ángela Bernardo and María Álvarez del Vayo in Civio on 9 October 2025.
It is available here.
Civio is an independent Spanish nonprofit investigative journalism organisation focused on transparency, public accountability, and data-driven reporting.
That’s all for now – we hope you’ve enjoyed the read. Keep an eye out for our next Dispatch of summaries this time next week!
The Translator team