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The domestication process for the genus Chenopodium, and for the species quinoa in particular, took place in various independent or linked areas over the same period or through migrations of people that conferred an adaptation to new ecological environments. So, current landraces are closely connected with specific geographical locations leading to the generation of distinct genotypes within the same species. These adaptations to specific agroecological regions generated five main ecotypes of the crop, which are associated with diversity sub-centres corresponding to the geographical regions and each of these groups displays high variability under specific agricultural practices. Considering these farmers’ practices under agro-meteorological constraints, a new typology for quinoa could separate eight typologies and wild relatives.

Through this high agrobiodiversity and wide ecology, the adaptation of Andean quinoa offers great potential to bring into production underutilized areas such as dry and salty fields. It confers the potential for these agricultural systems to adapt to climate change. Considerations about the importance of quinoa for subsistence agriculture and small-scale farms under low input systems are needed to implement new agricultural systems all around the world with quinoa species with respect to Andean local communities. Scenarios for the future diffusion of quinoa to newer areas should integrate the Farmers’ Property Rights and the Nagoya Protocol (attached to the Convention on Biological Diversity) that offers a framework for Access and Benefices Sharing.

The actual diffusion of quinoa across all the continents (North America, Europe, Asia and Africa) has occurred in diverse ways and has different objectives. But an international network that primarily includes researchers and farmers could provide an opportunity for better characterization and understanding of this species.

The biogeography of quinoa, an ancestral and highly nutritional crop, provides a global foresight of this underutilized crop in world agriculture, and also shows its broad geographic extension. Several aspects linked to its high genetic diversity and plasticity demonstrate that quinoa could become one of the most important crops of the South American Andes and could extend its area of cultivation in other contexts in the world giving, due respect to the farmers’ rights for the local communities from the areas of domestication.