In the first four months (October-January) of the Peruvian table grape campaign, exports reached 432 million kilos, representing a reduction of .5 percent compared to the same period the previous campaign, Fernando Cilloniz Benavides, president of Inform@ccion told Agraria.
The drop is due to blockades in January and is not crop related, he said.
Grape shipments in the first four months of the 2022/2023 campaign were as follows: October 45,576,129 kilos (34,929,743 kilos in the same month of the previous campaign); November 104,568,260 kilos (96,931,428 kilos); December 159,595,929 kilos (162,827,223 kilos); January 122,303,540 kilos (137,598,037 kilos).
“As can be seen in the months of October and November of this campaign, there was an increase in shipments (in the amount of 13 percent), but as a result of the blockades in December (one week) and January (the last two weeks) It prevented us from continuing to grow when we clearly should have,” said Cilloniz.
Cillóniz said that when there was a blockade in Ica, no work is done, consequently, there is no harvest. In this regard, he said that if the blockades are sporadic and short-lived, there is no major problem with grape production because the fruit does not spoil and is removed when there is a chance to do so.
However, this has not been the case, and the blockades they continued recurringly, especially in January, which was called to be very positive.
He said that in the first two weeks of January (when there was no blockade) the shipments of grapes were much higher than what was exported in January of the previous campaign, but in these last two weeks of January (where there were blockades), the shipments were very low with respect to potential.
“It is the first time in all these years that we have not recorded growth in table grape exports,” he said. “That is the consequence of the blockades that make the state, workers, companies, suppliers, customers lose. Nobody wins with this stoppage, but the damage has already been done.”
At the beginning of the 2022/2023 campaign, the Association of Table Grape Producers of Peru (Provid) projected that table grape exports would reach 73 million boxes (of 8.2 kilo boxes), which would represent an increase of 13 percent compared to what was shipped in the previous campaign.
