The CEO of ProArandanos, Sergio del Castillo Valderrama, stated that Peru would export 30,000 tons of blueberry this season (August 2016 / March 2017), i.e. 119% more than the 13,700 tons it shipped in the previous season (2015/2016).
According to Castillo Valderrama, there's been a significant increase in shipments because there are new areas of blueberries that are starting to be productive and because other blueberry crops have reached their adult stage and are producing higher yields.
More areas
In this regard, he said there currently were more than 3,000 hectares of blueberries planted in Peru and they expected to reach 5,000 hectares by the end of 2018.
"We know that the blueberry acreage will continue to increase because the nurseries already have requests for plants. There even are some that have already closed contracts for 2017 and for next year to provide blueberry plants to some agricultural companies," he said.
Del Castillo said La Libertad had the biggest blueberry crops, but that there would be blueberry crops installed throughout the coast of Lima (Canete, Barranca), Ancash, and Lambayeque (Olmos) in the next few years.
New varieties
The CEO of ProArandanos said that, currently, the prevailing variety in the market was the Biloxi, but that new varieties would become more important in the future due to the alliances made between producers and marketers of markets destinations that have their own varieties.
"The marketers share the genetic material so that their Peruvian partners (producers) can have access to it. Thus, the more alliances producers make, the higher the possibility that Peru will produces new varieties. Despite that, the Biloxi will continue to be an important variety, as it has many benefits," he said.
Prices decreased
Sergio del Castillo also spoke about prices. He said producers had achieved good returns at the beginning of the season (September) and that they had thought prices would remain stable, something that did not happen.
"We think those prices are a thing of the past. Currently, demand is good and there should be enough demand to support the sector's growth in the next two or three years. After that, we do not know what will happen with all the fruit that there will be," he concluded.
According to AgrodataPeru, Peru exported 26,468 tons of blueberries in 2016.
