Pan-American outlook for Ecuadorian dragon fruit industry - FreshFruitPortal.com

Pan-American outlook for Ecuadorian dragon fruit industry

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Pan-American outlook for Ecuadorian dragon fruit industry

While attention has been given to Ecuador's pitch to gain access to the U.S. dragon fruit market, the sector is looking for growth in a range of countries in the region and further afield.

Patricio Almeida, who is the general coordinator for plant health at state entity Agrocalidad, says dragon fruit - also known as pitahaya - form an important part of Ecuador's diversification into new crops.

Aside from mangoes and some vegetables, when it comes to produce exports Ecuador is quite literally a banana republic.

"There are some products like pitahaya which, as a government, we are giving an important boost and the opening of new markets like in the U.S. and in Asia in general are very attractive," Almeida told www.freshfruitportal.com.

"Moreover, we are also working on opening new markets in South America, where we didn't pay much attention before."

He said Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Peru and Brazil all showed great opportunities.

"We are trying to establish relations and phytosanitary requirements to be able to access these markets. We have been working on access requests for these countries with a lot of intensity for the last four years.

"We have had very good results...access for the U.S. market is very advanced and we think that we could have excellent news in the coming months. I can't give an exact date, but we could say the technical process has finished, the risk evaluation is finished, and now we are in the administrative stage which isn't so quick, for the publication of the final rule.

He said the main concern from the U.S. was fruit fly, but the National Management Plan for the pest had been successful to date with no problems in pitahaya exports to other destinations.

"We are involved in this project in declaring areas that are free or of low prevalance, with extensive monitoring of horticultural areas in the country.

"In the case of dragon fruit, controls are done in Palora, Guayas and Santa Elena, amongst the producing locales, where packers are also assisted with the implementation of traps, which are a requirement of APHIS (U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service)."

Regarding China, he says the country's risk evaluation processes are very complicated, because "they only evaluate one product at a time, and we already managed to enter with mangoes".

"The second product prioritized on the list is dragon fruit and we hope to have news in the coming months. We have a technical team that is very ready to move the procedures forward and we are working very well with counterparts at AQSIQ (China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine)," Almeida said.

"What I saw in China is that they have more red dragon fruit than yellow, because of their size and their customs."

Currently Ecuador has 850 hectares of dragon fruit planted, of which 90% are monitored by Agrocalidad, which is a requirement for exports.

Around 90-95% of production corresponds to the yellow variety.

The country is also trying to make the most of another opportunity where its bananas have a particularly strong presence - Russia.

On Dec. 9, 2016, the world's largest nation opened up access for fresh dragon fruit from Ecuador.

"In Russia this fruit is not well known but we already have access. Our strategy is to be opening the greatest quantity of markets so that later we can have promotion strategies where other institutions like ProEcuador can promote the Ecuadorian products overseas and focus on these types of markets that have great potential.

According to ProEcuador, 500 hectares are registered exclusively for pitahaya exports, with an average yield per hectare of around 7.6 metric tons (MT). The top markets are Hong Kong (53%) and Singapore (20%), while production is forecast to grow 10% in 2016.

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