Peru expects to start exporting more than 1,000 tons of pitahaya of the American Beauty variety to Europe via the Terra Project by November of this year. The pitahaya will be sent to Spanish, French, and Italian markets.
The general manager of R Coorp and founder of the project, Diego Rodriguez, said this first export would be carried out after the first 100 hectares of pitahaya were planted at the end of 2021 and the beginning of this year, within the framework of the project's first stage. In the second stage, they plan to plant another 100 hectares of pitahaya by the end of this year.
“We estimate the value of the product will range from US$4 to US$8 per kilo in this first export,” Diego Rodriguez stated.
Buyers from the United States and China have already shown interest in Peruvian pitahaya. However, the great limitation is that the authorization of the respective sanitary protocol for both countries is still in process.
Regarding the Peruvian pitahaya's entry to the United States, in January of this year the director of the Plant Quarantine Subdirectorate of the National Agrarian Health Service of Peru (Senasa), Julio Vivas, said that the US sanitary authority had finished its pest irrigation analysis and that they were negotiating the phytosanitary requirements, which would then lead to the regulatory process where the export requirements will be published.
Other countries that have been demanding the Peruvian pitahaya - but that are also missing a sanitary protocol to import it - are Israel, Ecuador, Mexico, and Colombia.
Source: Gestión.pe / agraria.pe