In exclusive statements to FreshFruitPortal.com, Juan Carlos Paredes, president of ProHass, the Peruvian Association of Producers and Exporters of Hass Avocado, said on March 11, that the Peruvian avocado campaign -which started in January-, had been benefiting from good prices, 40 to 50% higher than last year, but that volumes were adverse.

"This year we should produce about 468,000 tons, which would mean a 16% drop compared to last year, although it could be larger," he warned, mentioning weather conditions unfavorable for the crop.

Today, a month and a half later, Horacio Berríos, renowned consultant and agronomic advisor with extensive experience in the national and international avocado and citrus industry, updated us on the situation of avocado orchards in Peru, as well as the commercial challenges that the sector must face in the country.

"The current season has been very difficult, due, in fact, to the extreme environmental conditions to which the fields were exposed at all times which caused trees to endure stress conditions rarely seen in recent years. Not only high temperatures, but also extremely high radiation, extreme UV indices, low relative humidity, and strong winds," said Berríos.

But what does an avocado grower in Peru have to do today to be successful this season? What does a commercial manager have to do to make his company successful?

"This season is already played out," he said. "In some cases supporting fruit growth during the latest flowering can improve the caliber, ensure the harvest with an optimal dry matter content -hopefully, in my opinion, not less than 23% nor more than 27%-, and take care that the harvesting and packing operation is as neat as possible in operational and technical terms, so that the fruit can preserve its quality attributes."

For the agronomist and manager of Persea Agrícola, the decrease in productive levels of the fields should not go hand in hand with a linear or proportional decrease in the investments made to care for plants.

He said: "I would like to leave a clear and direct message to growers: we are avocado growers, not nails or screws; I am horrified to hear that there are fields where budget adjustments are linear to low production, and -although this is a business- we must understand that when working with living beings, extremely complex as avocados are, everything we stop doing now will be reflected in the following season. It would be a very bad scenario to enter the 2024/25 season with weak, nutritionally unbalanced trees, poor root development, or low vigor."

Getting your shoes dirty

Regarding the work of commercial managers, Berríos commented that in his twenty-two years of experience as an advisor and consultant, he has confirmed that when the relationship with the technical/productive area of the company is fluid, effectiveness increases considerably.

"Commercial managers have to go to the field throughout the season's development cycle; it is the only way they will get to know the fruit they intend to sell," he said.

Last January, the Peruvian Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (Midragri) informed that the Malaysian Department of Agriculture had formalized the phytosanitary requirements for the entry of Peruvian Hass avocado to its market.

It is worth mentioning that 93% of the avocado exported from Peru is Hass, the main avocado exported in the world. The fact is that, with the possibility of exporting to Malaysia, today Peruvian avocado can enter 67 markets in the world and has positioned the country as the second exporter of this fruit in the world.

The Global Avocado Summit organized by the Chilean Avocado Committee and Yentzen Group will be held on November 21 at the Casino Monticello event center.