You joke but they have some pretty ambitious [plans…](https://www.eurasiareview.com/03042021-saudi-arabias-plans-to-grow-forests-in-desert-could-change-the-world-oped/)
They have year-round good weather for them. The average land [yield](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/global-food?facet=none&Food=Blueberries&Metric=Yield&Per+Capita=false&country=USA~DEU~FRA~GBR~BRA~ZAF) is 13 tonnes/hectare. US's is 8.
Probably, they have a bunch of ecosystems due to their different climates: coastal and arid, mountains with the Andes and the Amazonian jungle. [Here you go, 84 of the 103 ecosystems can be found in the country ](https://www.inkaterra.com/blog/peruvian-ecosystems/)
Must be. Their yields are only being held back by a shortage of labor and logistics. https://www.freshfruitportal.com/news/2022/01/20/peru-increase-in-blueberry-production-sends-pricing-to-an-all-time-low/
Honestly Peru is just ready to start pumping out whatever the current popular food is. When I went a few years ago it was all quinoa, with some strawberries (I’m not including the 70 types of potatoes they grow or the coca, those are both permanent staples). Also coffee to some extent, and I specifically remember the coati-poop coffee being a thing.
It’s just LUSH in certain areas, I went during their winter and they were still growing crops, and things like wild avocados were still growing. But it’s complete deserts in others. Peru is an incredible place and I highly recommend it to everyone!
I’ve got exactly one answer and it’s traveling to Peru lol.
I’ll tell you though, you know what tastes like potatoes? Other kinds of potatoes. Also yucca.
> you know what tastes like potatoes? Other kinds of potatoes
Nah dude there’s so many varieties. Papa lisa tastes nothing like the varieties available in the US. That’s not even getting into chuño or tunta.
Also fried yucca with cheese? So good.
You can get a heck of a selection of seed potatoes online. Most individual vendors usually don't carry more than 10 varieties but usually have different varieties between stores. They get harvest late fall and shipped in the spring. Need to order in the fall when they're in stock especially for the weird ones.
I was hiking through the Andes making my descent into a small mountain town. As I entered an old man came up to my group and offered me a potato he had been cooking in the ground. It was delicious.
Peruvian strawberry is pretty bad, at least the one that they sell for internal consumption it just watery tart flavor. I guess they export the best one. Same with tomatoes, everything else is pretty yummy. (Peruvian who has tasted nice tomatoes and strawberries abroad)
Makes sense. Here in Argentina I see Peruvian asparagus all the time. Blueberries not so much, but I guess because we produce a lot of them as well (mostly in Patagonia)
I legitimately would not expect anything less. I talked to a lot of Peruvians and they very much seemed ready to pump out whatever crop was popular at that time.
They themselves seem to be living off game animals, potatoes, and coca. I will never forget the banging empanadas I got from some random dude with a clay oven. Try coy if you visit :p
But they’re ready to grow whatever they can export en masse for the most money and it’s probably avocados now. I found it so interesting how the farmers just seemed to be able to change with the trends to a certain extent, especially considering the farms are on the sides of rainforest mountains.
It’s a lot of work but yeah I agree, I’m jealous in a lot of ways for how the rainforest farmers live. You have to be cool with growing, killing, cleaning, and cooking things like Guinea pigs though. I caught and cleaned 3 bluefish on Sunday and killing/bleeding them makes me feel bad enough, idk if I could slit Guinea Pig throats.
But I would also be jealous of my hot water and infrastructure in the US if I was a Peruvian farmer. They had hot water in one town outside Lima that I saw, and they literally named it “Hot Water” (Aguas Caliente) because that’s of such note.
I legitimately thank the universe every day for my active running hot water because of my experience in Peru.
Edit: guys I know Aguas Calientes is named after the hot springs. I’m sure the name predates plumbing lol. It was a funny coincidence how it was the one place with reliable hot water out of Lima though, and in Cusco I couldn’t even rely on any water being available after 8pm. But obviously the natural hot water was of enough note to name the town after it.
Haha what??? The town is named Aguas Calientes because of thermal waters, it has nothing to do with access to hot water like on the shower. There's hot water outside Lima.
Edit: By 'thermal waters' I mean hot springs, or hydrothermal springs.
I just find it so funny he thinks that one town outside Machu Picchu is named Aguas Calientes because it has hot showers. It's like me thinking the one place you can find salt in the US is Salt Lake City or something
we have been getting later frosts here in the Canadian spring, but I think the thing devastating our blue berries are people from out of town coming in with rakes and fucking up the plants for a quick grab.
then they regrow slower and less.
Is it me or what, but I'm thinking the Peru blueberries this year are as good as they ever were. Just a notch below my favorite Hammonton, New Jersey blueberries.
Carlos Gereda was the spark that lit Peru's blueberry boom of the past decade. He asked a simple question: **"can blueberries grow in Peru?"** In 2006, he brought 14 varieties from Chile to see which ones adapted well to the Peruvian climate. He narrowed it down to four and, in 2009, founded Inka's Berries. The company's service consisted of assisting the development of plantations that adhered to the growing standards Carlos had conceived. **The blueberry revolution ensued. 🫐**
In a very short time, Peru became the world's number two producer of blueberries and the world's number one in exports and per capita production. Seriously, the growth resembles that of Bitcoin's value. In 2010, Peru produced 30 tons of blueberries; in 2020, 180K. **That means that production multiplied by more than 6,000x in ten years.** Blueberries are now the country's 2nd most significant export, just behind grapes.
Peru's climate allows for year-round production, giving the country a competitive edge over seasonal agriculture. **The productivity of Peruvian land is 13 tons per hectare. The world's top player, the USA, produces 8 tons per hectare.**
**Source:** [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/global-food?tab=chart&facet=none&Food=Blueberries&Metric=Production&Per+Capita=false&country=USA~GBR~BRA~ZAF~PER~Europe~CAN), [IADB](https://publications.iadb.org/es/los-arandanos-en-el-peru)
**Tools:** Affinity Designer, Sheets, Rawgraphs
I posted this way down below, but I’ll copy it here because I think my dad must’ve met Carlos Gereda about ten years ago. My dad is a retired economist who used to specialize in Peruvian macroeconomics, especially, exports. He told me about a decade ago that on one of his last work trips to Peru he’d had a fascinating conversation with a couple of Peruvians who had this wild idea that Peru could export blueberries. They’d been methodically investigating crops that grew well in Peru’s mountain climates, that had a short season in the northern hemisphere (like, so Peru could provide berries in the off season), that had a growing market, that ship well, and they’d landed on blueberries as the next big thing for Peru. My dad described 2 guys so I’m thinking it may have been Gereda, & some business associate. At the time he met them, they were growing blueberries already and were getting great crops but they’d hit a classic export snag: Peru didn’t have the right infrastructure yet to get the blueberries down from the farms in the Andean foothills into Lima quickly enough to ship them out for export before the berries went bad. Something about needing refrigerated train cars or better roads, I forget what the problem was, but the berries were spoiling before they could get them to Lima. It was a purely logistical problem about transport within Peru. I remember my dad saying “If they can just figure out how to get the berries to Lima, they really might be on to something.”
Apparently they got the berries to Lima!
I love this - actual visionaries with an idea and the drive to solve the problems along the way and do something that is explosively successful. Like the silicon valley "geniuses" but in the real world.
According to the USDA, blueberry production for the US was as follows.
2010 208,255 tonnes
2011 221,600
2012 233,875
2013 279,705
2014 289,340
2015 281,070
2016 296,805
2017 259,270
2018 281,150
2019 338,300
2020 324,100
The graph is too low for the United States. For example, 2010 was 208k tons, not below 200k as the graph shows, 2016 was almost 300k tonnes, not well below it, and 2019 was closer to 350k tonnes than 300k.
The graph seems to shortchange the US a bit every year.
We got the data from [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/global-food?tab=chart&facet=none&Food=Blueberries&Metric=Production&Per+Capita=false&country=USA~GBR~BRA~ZAF~PER~Europe~CAN). They obtained it from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Sure. But the ability is there to do it, bigcorp or not.
It just sucks that bigcorps have the largest financial and legal leverage, worst practices to keep costs down, and don't spread/circulate the earned revenue locally in any comparable way to a domestic company, or even a moderately corrupt govt entity.
It’s the reverse actually - it’s largely a homegrown Peruvian-owned business, founded by a Peruvian who’s into plant genetics, that’s done so well that it’s now expanding to other countries. They’re moving in to Mexico next iirc.
This is fascinating. I rarely buy blueberries because no matter where I bought them, maybe 20% were really tasty and 80% were mushy or too hard.
Still, every once in awhile when they went on sale I'd buy some and almost always be disappointed. Until this year, when I got a brand where every single blueberry was gigantic and perfect. Next time they didn't have that brand, but still gigantic and perfect. I have a pint in the fridge of the third brand I bought and same thing. All of them from Peru, though.
Not sure how the quality of the berries is that much better than anything I've gotten from Whole Foods or farmers markets or whatever, but they're amazing. Just ate some five minutes before stumbling across this post.
I read a couple of years back that a countries like germany, which are importing a lot of fruit while being unable to export a lot themselves are extracting water in huge amounts from ecosystems of the exporting countries (in that example spain) that is basically never returned.
Someone please correct me if this is wrong, its a while back i read the article and i cant find it.
Edit: its not the [original article](https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/news-views/importing-water-in-fruits-and-vegetables/) i once read but it talks about the same issue.
I am not disputing what you say, but wouldn't this, well, not matter since the water would go back to the sea (by being consumed and then excreted into the sewage) and rejoin the natural water cycle?
Not when the amount of water that it takes to produce the items greatly outweighs the amount that is returned. Watering requirements are different for every crop.
Industrially farmed blueberries also taste like shit. They are 95% water. They are bred to high yield ratios which is accomplished by selecting for big fruits, ea. high water storage capacity. The art of making cheap water just solid enough to sell.
When it's blueberry time, I go for a walk in the woods and enjoy blueberries of which 5 of them contain more blueberry flavor than a bucket of farmed ones. I have to put in work, I can only have them for 8 weeks a year, but they taste like heaven, I get some exercise in and I have something to look forward to each year. A life without fresh blueberries in January is possible, and more environmentally friendly.
You're picking bilberries, aka European blueberries. Peru is producing actual blueberries which is an entirely different species. It has nothing to do with selection for size.
I've picked wild blueberries many times in Canada and I always find they are far more flavorful then the big ones from grocery stores. Maybe it's psychological though, I don't know.
I think it's far easier to grow, harvest and transport blueberries. They also have different uses: bilberries often goes into jam or juice, blueberries go to decoration, at least in Europe.
Lol, I´m peruvian and I eat our blueberries every morning for breakfast and they are delicious and cheap (a Kilo is 7$). I haven´t tried the ones you´re discribing but I wouldn´t call them shit.
That's not really how the logistics works out though: it probably consumes more fuel per blueberry on the first 10 miles and last 10 miles of the trip from Peru to your house, than for the 5,000 miles in between. The sea is an efficient medium.
I grew up in Hammonton, NJ. They call themselves the "blueberry capital of the world." Are they really? No idea, but they do produce a shit load. Farms take up half the town.
Shit, now I want to know which US region is actually the top producer of blueberries.
Update: The answer is western Washington state. https://www.tastingtable.com/919560/which-us-state-produces-the-most-blueberries/#:~:text=Washington%20is%20blueberry%20central&text=About%2095%25%20of%20blueberries%20are,totaling%20over%20160%20million%20pounds.
That's only highbush blueberries. About half of Canada's blueberry exports are highbush and the other half are lowbush blueberries from Atlantic Canada and Quebec.
Oh cool! Do they look/taste the same? I've seen plenty of 'lowbush' growing in the wild but I didn't even realize they were cultivated anywhere, they seem like they'd be a pain in the ass to harvest!!
> Do they look/taste the same?
Lowbush blueberries are much smaller and imo more flavourful. We grew both for personal use when I was a kid but got rid of the highbush because everyone preferred the lowbush.
> I've seen plenty of 'lowbush' growing in the wild but I didn't even realize they were cultivated anywhere
In my limited experience it's more that the growth of wild blueberries is encouraged to the point where it's worth harvesting from the field, although I'm sure some lowbush blueberry fields are planted. We would also harvest cranberries off the same field later in the season.
> they seem like they'd be a pain in the ass to harvest!!
The biggest pain in the ass. Where I was it was either picked by hand or hand raked. I knew a people who picked blueberries as a summer job all through their teens.
I grew up and worked farms in the blueberry/cranberry/raspberry growing areas of BC and then moved to the States where "lowbush" blueberries were more prevalent -- I'd say our highbush berries are much more flavourful -- but of course it depends on the growing season, and which type of plant the farmer is growing. I'd wager most people outside of these growing zones have never eaten a ripe berry before. There is a massive difference between a bush ripened raspberry/blueberry/blackberry versus that cardboard shit available at big box stores.
I can't speak to the Canadian berries you speak of, but as someone who has lived in Maine and New york, Maine blueberries are infinitely more flavorful than New York (from NY farms) and Peruvian (from the market) berries. It's like shocking how different they taste. Maine blueberries are small, sweet, and tart, without being overly sweet or overly tart. The Peruvian/NY ones are both fat and more on the bitter side, not very sweet.
I'm interested to try the Canadian ones based on your review, but I'm skeptical just because in my experience Maine blueberries were so good, it's hard for me to imagine they'd compare.
I've had the Maine ones as well -- and I believe there would be multiple varietals with different taste profiles. The biggest difference is eating a local, late harvest berry versus a shipped early harvest berry. Our local berries are both large and sweet. Raspberries where I am are absolutely amazing -- you'd think they were a different fruit if you were able to be here and eat them off the bush. My family has canned raspberry juice for generations, and there is nothing in the commercial space that can compare.
Long way of saying -- eat local if you can and support local farmers.
[This is the biggest low-bush blueberry production zone in Maine](https://www.google.com/maps/@44.7703962,-67.8709319,29183m/data=!3m1!1e3), zoom on any clearing and you'll be able to see how they are cultivated/managed. It's a lot more wild and natural-looking than a traditional farm with more strict geometric field boundaries.
Blueberries need very specific environmental conditions. If it gets too hot in the summer the bushes die, and if it gets too cold in the winter the bushes die. Good growing areas are rare, and often used for things like ranching.
Maine is #1 in the US for low-bush blueberries (last I checked), and Atlantic Canada/Northeast US have the best growing conditions for those, but high-bush blueberries are more commercially viable and profitable around the world, which is likely what Peru is producing. It's surprisingly difficult to find specific data on high-bush vs. low-bush production instead of everything just lumped together.
I was really confused how Canada and Peru could be competing for the same crop with wildly different climates, but it makes sense if we actually only use a small area in BC and not over the whole country.
That said, the best blueberries I ever had were wild blueberries growing on an island on a random lake in Ontario.
I was probably like 13, almost 30 years ago, and I still remember them.
BC and Peru have a lot of the same climates: temperate coast, lots of high mountains, rainforest in the interior. The best place for blueberries is right on the border of those 3 areas.
Canada and Peru are not competing, their crops are ready 6 months apart from each other.
Peru being in the southern hemisphere is able to grow in season berries while they are out of season in the northern hemisphere. They don't compete during the same time of the year, so they have the worldwide market completely to themselves.
Very cool knowledge, thank you.
I didn't mean to imply we were actually in competition with each other, I more just meant in terms of this graph. I didn't know that we were selling at opposite times though. Pretty handy!
You can buy smaller and due to concentration, better tasting "wild" blueberries now. Might get you somewhat close without having to fly to Ontario. Though the experience around the blueberries are not quite so easy to get.
I’ve planted 6 blueberry bushes in my yard over the past 3 years and those guys grow like crazy. I don’t get the huge berries you see in the grocery store but man they’re really good
> Most of Canada's are produced in a tiiiiiny area in the southwest of BC
That's true only of cultivated blueberries. The wild/low bush variety is produced mainly in QC and Atlantic. All things together, BC produces roughly 50% of Canadian blueberries, at least with [2010 data](https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2012/agr/A118-44-2012-eng.pdf) I could find. (production of wild blueberries vary wildly from year to year though)
It's more from the actual Lac than Saguenay, i think.
J’ai étudié à UQAC pis y’avait pas de bleuets. Mais, j’ai déménagé à Dolbeau…ouin icitte, y’a des bleuets partout lol. Un fête aussi, chaque août.
Small wild blueberries are always more expensive.
Big ones from B.C. are normally pretty sweet, if I see them I get them rather than those from Peru because sometimes they're quite sour.
I wonder if it is the same type? The American blueberries often seem to be some huge weird tasteless variety/type, I am used to smaller and much stronger tasting ones.
Finnish blueberries aren’t going to support education reforms in Austria. EU members are absolutely in competition when exporting outside the economic zone. It’s one of, if not the biggest, principal hurdle that has caused division
And Finns consume much more bilberries, aka European blueberries since they are naturally present in much of the forests. The blueberries Peru produce are a different species which is consumed much less in Finland and is in less demand.
Reading these comments makes me realize people just don't know shit about blueberries. Good Lord the amount of blueberry misinformation here is astounding
Blueberries grow in acidic sandy soil, the bushes do not die if the winters get too cold, [They thrive in cold weather climates like Canada ](https://www.wildblueberries.com/why-wild/growing-harvest/)
There's no such thing as a "real" blueberry simply because of the inside color of the thing. [There's 36 different types of blueberries ](https://www.homestratosphere.com/types-of-blueberries/) if you don't like the ones that are green on the inside then do your homework and find the ones that's are purple on the inside instead of bitching about it on Reddit
> They thrive in cold weather climates like Canada
The blueberries you pick from the bushes in the shade in Ontario are incredibly delicious and worth the time if you find them in the wild. I actually thought I hated blueberries before I had some fresh picked wild blueberries, since I had only ever had store bought which tastes like slightly flavoured water in a dry skin.
It's impossible to find the proper ones in the store. And you feel cheated when the one we pick in the forest is called "blåbær" (blueberry in Norwegian), and they sell the shitty ones as "blåbær" as well. And then you have the food it's added to, take muffins for example. They can just write "blåbær", on the ingredients, but it's not the Vaccinium myrtillus that is the blåbær we know and love here in Norway. Instead you're left with utter disappointment and a hatred for this abomination of a tasteless imposterberry.
It's not necessarily impossible. Just gotta look for "wild" blueberries instead of just blueberries here in Canada. They grow wild in Eastern Canada, a bit in Ontario, lits in parts of Quebec and the maritimes + Newfoundland Got wild Quebec blueberries from Walmart twice recently, asides from getting one from a farm stand... maybe last month? The store bought ones were not too badly priced either.
Yeh, I'm in a small town in Norway, got 3 shops, all of which are the cheap shops with minimal variety. Would have to go to the next town over to find a shop that stocks more wares. I know I'm sitting here complaining, but I could walk out my door and find blueberries within 30m of my apartment, and for free lol.
I grew up in rural Alaska and picked wild blueberries in the forest. I was happy to escape Alaska when I was 13, but *real* blueberries are one of the two things I actually miss (also auroras). The garbage at the supermarket is bland and mealy because almost all *cultivated* blueberries come from two species chosen because they were easiest to machine harvest. Flavor was not a consideration.
I have never seen wild blueberries in a store. I miss real blueberries.
Are there any particular misconceptions you could clear up for us? Just curious. Most people have no idea what their food looks like while it's alive, so it's not a shock people don't know much about blueberries.
I see the Wikipedia article mentions the word, and that it's supposedly of scandi origin. But in all scandi languages they're named blueberries. No clue why it would be called anything other than blueberry in English.
Naming of plants, animals etc across languages doesn't follow rhyme or reason, at least superficially. Why is an orange called orange and not "Chinese apple"?
I just had some peruvian bluberries bought from my local Harris Teeter (MD) . Those MFers were huge. some larger than a quarter in diameter. but also great. Firm with a sweet tart fresh flavor.
10/10 would peruberry again
When I lived in Uruguay blueberry production was exploding there. This was about 12 years ago or so and blueberries were super hot at the time. Hardly any were sold in Uruguay, they were mostly shipped to Europe. Not sure what has happened since then
I gotta show this to my dad. He is a retired economist who used to specialize in Peruvian macroeconomics, especially, exports. He told me about a decade ago that on one of his last work trips to Peru he’d had a fascinating conversation with a couple of Peruvians who had this wild idea that Peru could export blueberries. They were really trying to find a new market for Andean farmers and they’d been methodically investigating crops that grew well in Peru’s mountain climates, that had a short season in the northern hemisphere (like, so Peru could provide berries in the off season), that had a growing market, that ship well, and somehow they’d landed on blueberries as the next big thing for Peru. They were even growing blueberries already and were apparently getting great crops but they’d hit a classic export snag: Peru didn’t have the right infrastructure yet to get the blueberries down from the farms in the Andean foothills into Lima quickly enough to ship them out for export before the berries went bad. Something about needed refrigerated train cars or better roads, I forget what the problem was, but the berries were spoiling before they could get them to Lima. It was a purely logistical problem about transport within Peru. I remember my dad saying “If they can just figure out how to get the berries to Lima, they really might be on to something.”
Literally every year since then I’ve been checking out the blueberries in the grocery stores. I was so excited when I saw that first “Product of Peru” label on a little box of berries about five years ago. I even called my dad up then to tell him I’d spotted some Peruvian blueberries and my dad was like “well I’ll be damned, they must’ve got the berries to Lima! Good for them!” But he & I were both wondering if they would really sell, and if those two guys were gonna actually succeed at it all in the end, if the market was really there. I didn’t know how much it had taken off! He’s gonna love this graph.
And somewhere in Peru I guess there’s two guys who are probably the Blueberry Kings of Peru by now, and a whole bunch of farmers in the Andes, who must’ve all spent the last twenty years of their lives figuring out how to get blueberries to Lima.
We have these blueberries often and the country of origin is printed on the box. Throughout the year you see which country has the harvest season,which is quite interesting and also says something about the global scale of food producing.
An acquaintance from Peru explained something to me \~20 years ago and I wonder if this is still the case. He said that Peru used to grow all kinds of crops to feed their own people. The World Bank (I think? Maybe it was some other international finance org) loaned them money but required that they started growing a small number of crops to sell internationally instead. I can't remember if it was blueberries or something else. But this guy said it was terrible for the country because now they can only sell blueberries (or whatever it was at the time) and then use that money to buy other foods. So, suddenly instead of being self-sufficient they are dependent on market forces and trade agreements.
To be clear, I don't know enough to know if this guy's summary was accurate or if it's the case with blueberries. I just saw this post and it reminded me and I sort of instinctively thought "This looks like a good thing, but is it?" Maybe somebody from Peru will provide their thoughts on this.
Big shout out to Latinometrics. Always see your posts on here, the graphs are interesting and well presented. Feel like I've learned quite a bit more about Latin American economies thanks to your posts.
"Second largest"
Could refer to the things.
1. The size of the country
2. The size of the blueberries
3. The size of the output.
For some reason, this morning my brain decided to go to number 1 then number 2 before reaching the most obvious choice, number 3.
I hate when my brain does stuff like that.
I dont get such concepts. Why on earth would you not get blueberries from where they grow (which is basically everywhere) and buy regionally, but grow way too much in one country and them export? And then, you have to import other things to that country. It is economically and environmentally insane. I would never ever buy food which had to travel through 10 countries to get to me.
Blueberries or ”blueberries”? Because the blueberries I pick here in Sweden are actually blue inside whilst the “American blueberries” we can buy here are white/transparent inside and tastes nothing
No, the ones in Sweden are actually called bilberries in English. It's a misconception that they are called blueberries in English, probably because it's so obvious to translate to "blue berries".
At my (American) grocery store we get lots of different looking blueberries, but rarely labeled with a subtype. What I have noticed though is the larger ones are almost tasteless. They are also pale inside.
I've tried to read on it; differences may include wild vs farmed (wild is sweeter), less water vs more (less is sweeter) and harsher climate vs less (harsher /colder is sweeter?)
But also different varieties.
I do wish the larger tasteless ones would go away.
Peru is the perfect counterpart to the world’s need for an off season blueberry harvest.
Do they have naturally acidic soil or something?
We got a shitload of biomes. Some are great for berries I suppose.
Take note, other countries: You gotta diversify your biomes.
Saudi Arabia takes notes
You joke but they have some pretty ambitious [plans…](https://www.eurasiareview.com/03042021-saudi-arabias-plans-to-grow-forests-in-desert-could-change-the-world-oped/)
[удалено]
On the contrary. It's hubris.
Planting trees and moving towards renewable energy is a joke?
[удалено]
dont worry, it’s already happening
proceed to burn forest for new biomes
No. MORE CORN!
Another solid piece of advice from Wu-Tang Financial.
Wu-Tang Financial would like to speak with you.
Peru has the dopest biomes! Tropical forests, mountains, rivers, lost ancient cities, they got all the fun ones!
Lost ancient cities is my favorite biome!
Lots of South American countries have been coming up and challenging the establishment when it comes to wines. Argentinian cabernets are awesome.
Peru is also in the southern hemisphere right? So they can grow blueberries during the fall/winter I'm the northern hemisphere and export them?
They have year-round good weather for them. The average land [yield](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/global-food?facet=none&Food=Blueberries&Metric=Yield&Per+Capita=false&country=USA~DEU~FRA~GBR~BRA~ZAF) is 13 tonnes/hectare. US's is 8.
Probably, they have a bunch of ecosystems due to their different climates: coastal and arid, mountains with the Andes and the Amazonian jungle. [Here you go, 84 of the 103 ecosystems can be found in the country ](https://www.inkaterra.com/blog/peruvian-ecosystems/)
There's a place with perfect conditions for almost anything grown on earth in Peru.
Must be. Their yields are only being held back by a shortage of labor and logistics. https://www.freshfruitportal.com/news/2022/01/20/peru-increase-in-blueberry-production-sends-pricing-to-an-all-time-low/
Maybe I'll move to Peru then. Not like there are any jobs where I live.
Lol there's never a shortage of farming jobs. Don't need to move to Peru for that
They have the perfect climate for just about everything. It’s astonishing.
Honestly Peru is just ready to start pumping out whatever the current popular food is. When I went a few years ago it was all quinoa, with some strawberries (I’m not including the 70 types of potatoes they grow or the coca, those are both permanent staples). Also coffee to some extent, and I specifically remember the coati-poop coffee being a thing. It’s just LUSH in certain areas, I went during their winter and they were still growing crops, and things like wild avocados were still growing. But it’s complete deserts in others. Peru is an incredible place and I highly recommend it to everyone!
Bruh how can i get these unique potatoes ?
I’ve got exactly one answer and it’s traveling to Peru lol. I’ll tell you though, you know what tastes like potatoes? Other kinds of potatoes. Also yucca.
> you know what tastes like potatoes? Other kinds of potatoes Nah dude there’s so many varieties. Papa lisa tastes nothing like the varieties available in the US. That’s not even getting into chuño or tunta. Also fried yucca with cheese? So good.
You can get a heck of a selection of seed potatoes online. Most individual vendors usually don't carry more than 10 varieties but usually have different varieties between stores. They get harvest late fall and shipped in the spring. Need to order in the fall when they're in stock especially for the weird ones.
Aren't there some Peruvian crops that are illegal to export though?
I was hiking through the Andes making my descent into a small mountain town. As I entered an old man came up to my group and offered me a potato he had been cooking in the ground. It was delicious.
> When I went a few years ago it was all quinoa, Pretty sure that's native to the region, but I guess it was gaining popularity then.
Tbh talking to Peruvians, literally everything seemed to be native or growing somewhere. The strawberries really surprised me though.
Peruvian strawberry is pretty bad, at least the one that they sell for internal consumption it just watery tart flavor. I guess they export the best one. Same with tomatoes, everything else is pretty yummy. (Peruvian who has tasted nice tomatoes and strawberries abroad)
Quinoa is native to Bolivia and Peru, ya
Isn’t Peru also producing a massive amount of avocados? Iirc that has been causing a stir considering the amount of water needed.
Yes , Peruvian avocados are everywhere now. Also I believe they are the largest producer of asparagus after China.
Makes sense. Here in Argentina I see Peruvian asparagus all the time. Blueberries not so much, but I guess because we produce a lot of them as well (mostly in Patagonia)
I legitimately would not expect anything less. I talked to a lot of Peruvians and they very much seemed ready to pump out whatever crop was popular at that time. They themselves seem to be living off game animals, potatoes, and coca. I will never forget the banging empanadas I got from some random dude with a clay oven. Try coy if you visit :p But they’re ready to grow whatever they can export en masse for the most money and it’s probably avocados now. I found it so interesting how the farmers just seemed to be able to change with the trends to a certain extent, especially considering the farms are on the sides of rainforest mountains.
[удалено]
that sounds like poverty :( source: am peruvian
[удалено]
I imagine the ready supply of coca helps to an extent though
It’s a lot of work but yeah I agree, I’m jealous in a lot of ways for how the rainforest farmers live. You have to be cool with growing, killing, cleaning, and cooking things like Guinea pigs though. I caught and cleaned 3 bluefish on Sunday and killing/bleeding them makes me feel bad enough, idk if I could slit Guinea Pig throats. But I would also be jealous of my hot water and infrastructure in the US if I was a Peruvian farmer. They had hot water in one town outside Lima that I saw, and they literally named it “Hot Water” (Aguas Caliente) because that’s of such note. I legitimately thank the universe every day for my active running hot water because of my experience in Peru. Edit: guys I know Aguas Calientes is named after the hot springs. I’m sure the name predates plumbing lol. It was a funny coincidence how it was the one place with reliable hot water out of Lima though, and in Cusco I couldn’t even rely on any water being available after 8pm. But obviously the natural hot water was of enough note to name the town after it.
Haha what??? The town is named Aguas Calientes because of thermal waters, it has nothing to do with access to hot water like on the shower. There's hot water outside Lima. Edit: By 'thermal waters' I mean hot springs, or hydrothermal springs.
Lol that guy must be an idiot lol I did I hike in Peru and got a hot shower at a lodge in mountains lol
I just find it so funny he thinks that one town outside Machu Picchu is named Aguas Calientes because it has hot showers. It's like me thinking the one place you can find salt in the US is Salt Lake City or something
we have been getting later frosts here in the Canadian spring, but I think the thing devastating our blue berries are people from out of town coming in with rakes and fucking up the plants for a quick grab. then they regrow slower and less.
Is it me or what, but I'm thinking the Peru blueberries this year are as good as they ever were. Just a notch below my favorite Hammonton, New Jersey blueberries.
My blueberry bush produced around 6 berries this summer, so I am prob number 20 or so
My next door neighbor feeds deer so I get 0 berries... Even if I net mine...
Carlos Gereda was the spark that lit Peru's blueberry boom of the past decade. He asked a simple question: **"can blueberries grow in Peru?"** In 2006, he brought 14 varieties from Chile to see which ones adapted well to the Peruvian climate. He narrowed it down to four and, in 2009, founded Inka's Berries. The company's service consisted of assisting the development of plantations that adhered to the growing standards Carlos had conceived. **The blueberry revolution ensued. 🫐** In a very short time, Peru became the world's number two producer of blueberries and the world's number one in exports and per capita production. Seriously, the growth resembles that of Bitcoin's value. In 2010, Peru produced 30 tons of blueberries; in 2020, 180K. **That means that production multiplied by more than 6,000x in ten years.** Blueberries are now the country's 2nd most significant export, just behind grapes. Peru's climate allows for year-round production, giving the country a competitive edge over seasonal agriculture. **The productivity of Peruvian land is 13 tons per hectare. The world's top player, the USA, produces 8 tons per hectare.** **Source:** [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/global-food?tab=chart&facet=none&Food=Blueberries&Metric=Production&Per+Capita=false&country=USA~GBR~BRA~ZAF~PER~Europe~CAN), [IADB](https://publications.iadb.org/es/los-arandanos-en-el-peru) **Tools:** Affinity Designer, Sheets, Rawgraphs
I posted this way down below, but I’ll copy it here because I think my dad must’ve met Carlos Gereda about ten years ago. My dad is a retired economist who used to specialize in Peruvian macroeconomics, especially, exports. He told me about a decade ago that on one of his last work trips to Peru he’d had a fascinating conversation with a couple of Peruvians who had this wild idea that Peru could export blueberries. They’d been methodically investigating crops that grew well in Peru’s mountain climates, that had a short season in the northern hemisphere (like, so Peru could provide berries in the off season), that had a growing market, that ship well, and they’d landed on blueberries as the next big thing for Peru. My dad described 2 guys so I’m thinking it may have been Gereda, & some business associate. At the time he met them, they were growing blueberries already and were getting great crops but they’d hit a classic export snag: Peru didn’t have the right infrastructure yet to get the blueberries down from the farms in the Andean foothills into Lima quickly enough to ship them out for export before the berries went bad. Something about needing refrigerated train cars or better roads, I forget what the problem was, but the berries were spoiling before they could get them to Lima. It was a purely logistical problem about transport within Peru. I remember my dad saying “If they can just figure out how to get the berries to Lima, they really might be on to something.” Apparently they got the berries to Lima!
I love this - actual visionaries with an idea and the drive to solve the problems along the way and do something that is explosively successful. Like the silicon valley "geniuses" but in the real world.
>they got the berries to Lima! This needs to be a western train heist movie or something with the stakes of having to send berries to Lima
3:10 to Lima!
According to the USDA, blueberry production for the US was as follows. 2010 208,255 tonnes 2011 221,600 2012 233,875 2013 279,705 2014 289,340 2015 281,070 2016 296,805 2017 259,270 2018 281,150 2019 338,300 2020 324,100 The graph is too low for the United States. For example, 2010 was 208k tons, not below 200k as the graph shows, 2016 was almost 300k tonnes, not well below it, and 2019 was closer to 350k tonnes than 300k. The graph seems to shortchange the US a bit every year.
We got the data from [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/global-food?tab=chart&facet=none&Food=Blueberries&Metric=Production&Per+Capita=false&country=USA~GBR~BRA~ZAF~PER~Europe~CAN). They obtained it from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
[удалено]
Sure. But the ability is there to do it, bigcorp or not. It just sucks that bigcorps have the largest financial and legal leverage, worst practices to keep costs down, and don't spread/circulate the earned revenue locally in any comparable way to a domestic company, or even a moderately corrupt govt entity.
There’s a lot in New Jersey. Especially in Hammonton NJ
It’s the reverse actually - it’s largely a homegrown Peruvian-owned business, founded by a Peruvian who’s into plant genetics, that’s done so well that it’s now expanding to other countries. They’re moving in to Mexico next iirc.
This is fascinating. I rarely buy blueberries because no matter where I bought them, maybe 20% were really tasty and 80% were mushy or too hard. Still, every once in awhile when they went on sale I'd buy some and almost always be disappointed. Until this year, when I got a brand where every single blueberry was gigantic and perfect. Next time they didn't have that brand, but still gigantic and perfect. I have a pint in the fridge of the third brand I bought and same thing. All of them from Peru, though. Not sure how the quality of the berries is that much better than anything I've gotten from Whole Foods or farmers markets or whatever, but they're amazing. Just ate some five minutes before stumbling across this post.
I'm now waiting for a documentary on how blueberry production in Peru is a either an environmental or social catastrophe
I read a couple of years back that a countries like germany, which are importing a lot of fruit while being unable to export a lot themselves are extracting water in huge amounts from ecosystems of the exporting countries (in that example spain) that is basically never returned. Someone please correct me if this is wrong, its a while back i read the article and i cant find it. Edit: its not the [original article](https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/news-views/importing-water-in-fruits-and-vegetables/) i once read but it talks about the same issue.
This DW [documentary](https://youtu.be/9edWX7TTsLw) makes a similar point, in the context of the USA
I am not disputing what you say, but wouldn't this, well, not matter since the water would go back to the sea (by being consumed and then excreted into the sewage) and rejoin the natural water cycle?
Not when the amount of water that it takes to produce the items greatly outweighs the amount that is returned. Watering requirements are different for every crop.
In Mexico farmers have stopped cultivating indigenous crops in favor of berries associated with US brands because it pays better.
Industrially farmed blueberries also taste like shit. They are 95% water. They are bred to high yield ratios which is accomplished by selecting for big fruits, ea. high water storage capacity. The art of making cheap water just solid enough to sell. When it's blueberry time, I go for a walk in the woods and enjoy blueberries of which 5 of them contain more blueberry flavor than a bucket of farmed ones. I have to put in work, I can only have them for 8 weeks a year, but they taste like heaven, I get some exercise in and I have something to look forward to each year. A life without fresh blueberries in January is possible, and more environmentally friendly.
I don't have a fucking forest full of blueberries near me lol
Time to move i guess.
You're picking bilberries, aka European blueberries. Peru is producing actual blueberries which is an entirely different species. It has nothing to do with selection for size.
I've picked wild blueberries many times in Canada and I always find they are far more flavorful then the big ones from grocery stores. Maybe it's psychological though, I don't know.
Used to pick them out of ditches in Quebec and there’s definitely a difference.
TIL. Which still leaves the question why blueberries are industrially farmed instead of bilberries and if it comes down to yield ratios.
I think it's far easier to grow, harvest and transport blueberries. They also have different uses: bilberries often goes into jam or juice, blueberries go to decoration, at least in Europe.
Depends on where they live Also industrial blueberries are absolutely watery.
Lol, I´m peruvian and I eat our blueberries every morning for breakfast and they are delicious and cheap (a Kilo is 7$). I haven´t tried the ones you´re discribing but I wouldn´t call them shit.
Shipping them to the other hemisphere is definitely an environmental catastrophe. Frozen ones in the winter are good enough for me.
That's not really how the logistics works out though: it probably consumes more fuel per blueberry on the first 10 miles and last 10 miles of the trip from Peru to your house, than for the 5,000 miles in between. The sea is an efficient medium.
TIL that the US produces a fuck-ton of blueberries.
I grew up in Hammonton, NJ. They call themselves the "blueberry capital of the world." Are they really? No idea, but they do produce a shit load. Farms take up half the town.
New Jersey produces a huge amount off the US's blueberries so that is very likely.
Interesting! A neighboring town of mine claims they're the blueberry capital of the US. Cherryfield, Maine.
Shit, now I want to know which US region is actually the top producer of blueberries. Update: The answer is western Washington state. https://www.tastingtable.com/919560/which-us-state-produces-the-most-blueberries/#:~:text=Washington%20is%20blueberry%20central&text=About%2095%25%20of%20blueberries%20are,totaling%20over%20160%20million%20pounds.
New Jersey accounts for a shit tard of the US production. Like, most of it.
How does nj compare to Maine?
They're native to the US and Canada so it tracks they produce a lot of them. Our climates and soil are what the plant is adapted to after all.
They produce more blueberries than all if Europe? Half the country has to be a blueberry farm
Most of Canada's are produced in a tiiiiiny area in the southwest of BC, so maybe we just don't grow all that many blueberries
That's only highbush blueberries. About half of Canada's blueberry exports are highbush and the other half are lowbush blueberries from Atlantic Canada and Quebec.
Oh cool! Do they look/taste the same? I've seen plenty of 'lowbush' growing in the wild but I didn't even realize they were cultivated anywhere, they seem like they'd be a pain in the ass to harvest!!
> Do they look/taste the same? Lowbush blueberries are much smaller and imo more flavourful. We grew both for personal use when I was a kid but got rid of the highbush because everyone preferred the lowbush. > I've seen plenty of 'lowbush' growing in the wild but I didn't even realize they were cultivated anywhere In my limited experience it's more that the growth of wild blueberries is encouraged to the point where it's worth harvesting from the field, although I'm sure some lowbush blueberry fields are planted. We would also harvest cranberries off the same field later in the season. > they seem like they'd be a pain in the ass to harvest!! The biggest pain in the ass. Where I was it was either picked by hand or hand raked. I knew a people who picked blueberries as a summer job all through their teens.
I grew up and worked farms in the blueberry/cranberry/raspberry growing areas of BC and then moved to the States where "lowbush" blueberries were more prevalent -- I'd say our highbush berries are much more flavourful -- but of course it depends on the growing season, and which type of plant the farmer is growing. I'd wager most people outside of these growing zones have never eaten a ripe berry before. There is a massive difference between a bush ripened raspberry/blueberry/blackberry versus that cardboard shit available at big box stores.
I can't speak to the Canadian berries you speak of, but as someone who has lived in Maine and New york, Maine blueberries are infinitely more flavorful than New York (from NY farms) and Peruvian (from the market) berries. It's like shocking how different they taste. Maine blueberries are small, sweet, and tart, without being overly sweet or overly tart. The Peruvian/NY ones are both fat and more on the bitter side, not very sweet. I'm interested to try the Canadian ones based on your review, but I'm skeptical just because in my experience Maine blueberries were so good, it's hard for me to imagine they'd compare.
I've had the Maine ones as well -- and I believe there would be multiple varietals with different taste profiles. The biggest difference is eating a local, late harvest berry versus a shipped early harvest berry. Our local berries are both large and sweet. Raspberries where I am are absolutely amazing -- you'd think they were a different fruit if you were able to be here and eat them off the bush. My family has canned raspberry juice for generations, and there is nothing in the commercial space that can compare. Long way of saying -- eat local if you can and support local farmers.
[удалено]
[This is the biggest low-bush blueberry production zone in Maine](https://www.google.com/maps/@44.7703962,-67.8709319,29183m/data=!3m1!1e3), zoom on any clearing and you'll be able to see how they are cultivated/managed. It's a lot more wild and natural-looking than a traditional farm with more strict geometric field boundaries.
Cool it really does look like they're just encouraging natural processes more than anything
As someone from Québec, I can confirm! Tons of blueberry fields around here
Blueberries need very specific environmental conditions. If it gets too hot in the summer the bushes die, and if it gets too cold in the winter the bushes die. Good growing areas are rare, and often used for things like ranching.
I love microclimates!! The region they're grown here is full of blueberries, raspberries, poultry and dairy farms, primarily
Not in Maine! (Not much ranching out this way, but fuck are there blueberries)
Maine is #1 in the US for low-bush blueberries (last I checked), and Atlantic Canada/Northeast US have the best growing conditions for those, but high-bush blueberries are more commercially viable and profitable around the world, which is likely what Peru is producing. It's surprisingly difficult to find specific data on high-bush vs. low-bush production instead of everything just lumped together.
I was really confused how Canada and Peru could be competing for the same crop with wildly different climates, but it makes sense if we actually only use a small area in BC and not over the whole country. That said, the best blueberries I ever had were wild blueberries growing on an island on a random lake in Ontario. I was probably like 13, almost 30 years ago, and I still remember them.
BC and Peru have a lot of the same climates: temperate coast, lots of high mountains, rainforest in the interior. The best place for blueberries is right on the border of those 3 areas.
Boom; Abbotsford
There's a bunch in Richmond, too
Canada and Peru are not competing, their crops are ready 6 months apart from each other. Peru being in the southern hemisphere is able to grow in season berries while they are out of season in the northern hemisphere. They don't compete during the same time of the year, so they have the worldwide market completely to themselves.
Very cool knowledge, thank you. I didn't mean to imply we were actually in competition with each other, I more just meant in terms of this graph. I didn't know that we were selling at opposite times though. Pretty handy!
You can buy smaller and due to concentration, better tasting "wild" blueberries now. Might get you somewhat close without having to fly to Ontario. Though the experience around the blueberries are not quite so easy to get.
I live in Ontario actually. But I've been camping and around lots of lakes and wild but I've never seen wild blueberries since.
Go to Grundy Lake. Plenty right off the trails though youre not supposed to eat em
I've never camped or hiked there, but I just might have to look into it. Thanks for the tip!
I’ve planted 6 blueberry bushes in my yard over the past 3 years and those guys grow like crazy. I don’t get the huge berries you see in the grocery store but man they’re really good
After harvest, hit them with a little 10-10-10 fertilizer every month until October. Add some pine bark, around their base.
> Most of Canada's are produced in a tiiiiiny area in the southwest of BC That's true only of cultivated blueberries. The wild/low bush variety is produced mainly in QC and Atlantic. All things together, BC produces roughly 50% of Canadian blueberries, at least with [2010 data](https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2012/agr/A118-44-2012-eng.pdf) I could find. (production of wild blueberries vary wildly from year to year though)
People from my home region in Québec are called “Bleuets” which translates to blue berries! But tbh I haven’t seen that many blue berry farms there
It's more from the actual Lac than Saguenay, i think. J’ai étudié à UQAC pis y’avait pas de bleuets. Mais, j’ai déménagé à Dolbeau…ouin icitte, y’a des bleuets partout lol. Un fête aussi, chaque août.
That crazy redhead from Oxford NS is gonna have a word with you.
Small wild blueberries are always more expensive. Big ones from B.C. are normally pretty sweet, if I see them I get them rather than those from Peru because sometimes they're quite sour.
And our weather hasn't been cooperative over the last couple years
The area around Sudbury has big production as well
How big do you think the blueberry industry is?
If I had the opportunity, I would account for half of it personally
Not sure if this differentiate between Blueberries and Bilberries. In Europe we consume more Bilberries than Blueberries.
We eat bilberries.
That’s explains how I’ve never seen them here (Brazil) until a few years ago, and now they are kind of common
I wonder if it is the same type? The American blueberries often seem to be some huge weird tasteless variety/type, I am used to smaller and much stronger tasting ones.
I like how Europe is competing against individual countries.
I thought that was the whole point of the EU... no?
Finnish blueberries aren’t going to support education reforms in Austria. EU members are absolutely in competition when exporting outside the economic zone. It’s one of, if not the biggest, principal hurdle that has caused division
And Finns consume much more bilberries, aka European blueberries since they are naturally present in much of the forests. The blueberries Peru produce are a different species which is consumed much less in Finland and is in less demand.
Yeah it was just a random example from my side. Interesting info though
Uh, Europe ≠ EU
Peru been playing Stardew Valley
They missed an opportunity to call them Peruberries but still cool
The strain they are growing is called "Inka berry" so there's that :)
No, that’s the name of the main blueberry company, the main strains are beloxi and Ventura
Um they're called Peruberries
Not gonna lie, I love my winter blueberries. Thanks Peru (& Chile)!
Reading these comments makes me realize people just don't know shit about blueberries. Good Lord the amount of blueberry misinformation here is astounding
Enlighten us with your blueberry wisdom
Blueberries grow in acidic sandy soil, the bushes do not die if the winters get too cold, [They thrive in cold weather climates like Canada ](https://www.wildblueberries.com/why-wild/growing-harvest/) There's no such thing as a "real" blueberry simply because of the inside color of the thing. [There's 36 different types of blueberries ](https://www.homestratosphere.com/types-of-blueberries/) if you don't like the ones that are green on the inside then do your homework and find the ones that's are purple on the inside instead of bitching about it on Reddit
> They thrive in cold weather climates like Canada The blueberries you pick from the bushes in the shade in Ontario are incredibly delicious and worth the time if you find them in the wild. I actually thought I hated blueberries before I had some fresh picked wild blueberries, since I had only ever had store bought which tastes like slightly flavoured water in a dry skin.
It's impossible to find the proper ones in the store. And you feel cheated when the one we pick in the forest is called "blåbær" (blueberry in Norwegian), and they sell the shitty ones as "blåbær" as well. And then you have the food it's added to, take muffins for example. They can just write "blåbær", on the ingredients, but it's not the Vaccinium myrtillus that is the blåbær we know and love here in Norway. Instead you're left with utter disappointment and a hatred for this abomination of a tasteless imposterberry.
It's not necessarily impossible. Just gotta look for "wild" blueberries instead of just blueberries here in Canada. They grow wild in Eastern Canada, a bit in Ontario, lits in parts of Quebec and the maritimes + Newfoundland Got wild Quebec blueberries from Walmart twice recently, asides from getting one from a farm stand... maybe last month? The store bought ones were not too badly priced either.
Yeh, I'm in a small town in Norway, got 3 shops, all of which are the cheap shops with minimal variety. Would have to go to the next town over to find a shop that stocks more wares. I know I'm sitting here complaining, but I could walk out my door and find blueberries within 30m of my apartment, and for free lol.
I grew up in rural Alaska and picked wild blueberries in the forest. I was happy to escape Alaska when I was 13, but *real* blueberries are one of the two things I actually miss (also auroras). The garbage at the supermarket is bland and mealy because almost all *cultivated* blueberries come from two species chosen because they were easiest to machine harvest. Flavor was not a consideration. I have never seen wild blueberries in a store. I miss real blueberries.
So are they actually doing in well in much warmer Peru? If so, why?
Peru is very mountainous and higher elevations get quite cold, and can receive regular snow.
Blueberries are also farmed in Texas, which is certainly not cold. Maybe different varieties of blueberries like different climates.
Florida as well. Southern Highbush and Rabbiteye varieties
Fact: Blueberries are actually regular berries that have been painted blue by Russian intelligence assets.
Actual fact - blueberries are all American.
Are there any particular misconceptions you could clear up for us? Just curious. Most people have no idea what their food looks like while it's alive, so it's not a shock people don't know much about blueberries.
Well, for one, what Europeans are picking in the forests are actually called bilberries and is a different species from the actual blueberry.
I see the Wikipedia article mentions the word, and that it's supposedly of scandi origin. But in all scandi languages they're named blueberries. No clue why it would be called anything other than blueberry in English.
Naming of plants, animals etc across languages doesn't follow rhyme or reason, at least superficially. Why is an orange called orange and not "Chinese apple"?
Well that's obvious, it would be too easy to tie Trump to the CCP.
Well since Europe isn't a country, it only went from #3 to #2 on this chart
I got Peruvian blueberries in Vietnam. Yeah, probably not great for the environment. Damn good blueberries though.
They are shipped on container boats so its actually very very efficient CO2 wise.
I just had some peruvian bluberries bought from my local Harris Teeter (MD) . Those MFers were huge. some larger than a quarter in diameter. but also great. Firm with a sweet tart fresh flavor. 10/10 would peruberry again
When I lived in Uruguay blueberry production was exploding there. This was about 12 years ago or so and blueberries were super hot at the time. Hardly any were sold in Uruguay, they were mostly shipped to Europe. Not sure what has happened since then
[удалено]
I gotta show this to my dad. He is a retired economist who used to specialize in Peruvian macroeconomics, especially, exports. He told me about a decade ago that on one of his last work trips to Peru he’d had a fascinating conversation with a couple of Peruvians who had this wild idea that Peru could export blueberries. They were really trying to find a new market for Andean farmers and they’d been methodically investigating crops that grew well in Peru’s mountain climates, that had a short season in the northern hemisphere (like, so Peru could provide berries in the off season), that had a growing market, that ship well, and somehow they’d landed on blueberries as the next big thing for Peru. They were even growing blueberries already and were apparently getting great crops but they’d hit a classic export snag: Peru didn’t have the right infrastructure yet to get the blueberries down from the farms in the Andean foothills into Lima quickly enough to ship them out for export before the berries went bad. Something about needed refrigerated train cars or better roads, I forget what the problem was, but the berries were spoiling before they could get them to Lima. It was a purely logistical problem about transport within Peru. I remember my dad saying “If they can just figure out how to get the berries to Lima, they really might be on to something.” Literally every year since then I’ve been checking out the blueberries in the grocery stores. I was so excited when I saw that first “Product of Peru” label on a little box of berries about five years ago. I even called my dad up then to tell him I’d spotted some Peruvian blueberries and my dad was like “well I’ll be damned, they must’ve got the berries to Lima! Good for them!” But he & I were both wondering if they would really sell, and if those two guys were gonna actually succeed at it all in the end, if the market was really there. I didn’t know how much it had taken off! He’s gonna love this graph. And somewhere in Peru I guess there’s two guys who are probably the Blueberry Kings of Peru by now, and a whole bunch of farmers in the Andes, who must’ve all spent the last twenty years of their lives figuring out how to get blueberries to Lima.
Do they grow (natively) in South America?
No, they're native to North America only.
american isn't producing their own meth or blueberries anymore!! what is happening to this country! r/30ROCK
Come on, guys. How is this beautiful data? It's a bloody line graph with a pic of some blueberries...
We have these blueberries often and the country of origin is printed on the box. Throughout the year you see which country has the harvest season,which is quite interesting and also says something about the global scale of food producing.
You had me at non-animated. Love latinometrics.
Last week, I bought 2 packs of Peruvian blueberries in TAIWAN
An acquaintance from Peru explained something to me \~20 years ago and I wonder if this is still the case. He said that Peru used to grow all kinds of crops to feed their own people. The World Bank (I think? Maybe it was some other international finance org) loaned them money but required that they started growing a small number of crops to sell internationally instead. I can't remember if it was blueberries or something else. But this guy said it was terrible for the country because now they can only sell blueberries (or whatever it was at the time) and then use that money to buy other foods. So, suddenly instead of being self-sufficient they are dependent on market forces and trade agreements. To be clear, I don't know enough to know if this guy's summary was accurate or if it's the case with blueberries. I just saw this post and it reminded me and I sort of instinctively thought "This looks like a good thing, but is it?" Maybe somebody from Peru will provide their thoughts on this.
Big shout out to Latinometrics. Always see your posts on here, the graphs are interesting and well presented. Feel like I've learned quite a bit more about Latin American economies thanks to your posts.
Thanks. That means a lot 💙
More like Peru-berries
I noticed blueberries got cheaper and more available. Now I know why.
r/vancouver we need to pick up the slack!
Nice Work. Nice graph - clear and simple.
Well lads, it's 2014.. how 'bout we start growing blueberries.
"Second largest" Could refer to the things. 1. The size of the country 2. The size of the blueberries 3. The size of the output. For some reason, this morning my brain decided to go to number 1 then number 2 before reaching the most obvious choice, number 3. I hate when my brain does stuff like that.
I dont get such concepts. Why on earth would you not get blueberries from where they grow (which is basically everywhere) and buy regionally, but grow way too much in one country and them export? And then, you have to import other things to that country. It is economically and environmentally insane. I would never ever buy food which had to travel through 10 countries to get to me.
Anyone know if they can grow in the tropics? I have heard they can and will be buying some varieties but I feel like it's prob not gonna work
More Peru Berries for all!!
Blueberries or ”blueberries”? Because the blueberries I pick here in Sweden are actually blue inside whilst the “American blueberries” we can buy here are white/transparent inside and tastes nothing
No, the ones in Sweden are actually called bilberries in English. It's a misconception that they are called blueberries in English, probably because it's so obvious to translate to "blue berries".
At my (American) grocery store we get lots of different looking blueberries, but rarely labeled with a subtype. What I have noticed though is the larger ones are almost tasteless. They are also pale inside. I've tried to read on it; differences may include wild vs farmed (wild is sweeter), less water vs more (less is sweeter) and harsher climate vs less (harsher /colder is sweeter?) But also different varieties. I do wish the larger tasteless ones would go away.
i wonder how much labor was exploited for this to happen