The cultivation of table grapes in Piura has experienced a huge boom in the last two decades. Twenty years ago, Ica was the representative region of this crop; however, at the beginning of the century, Piura embarked on the transformation of thousands of hectares of unused lands into agro-exporting lands. One of the products it opted to produce in these lands was the table grape, currently one of the country's top fruit exports.
Sociedad Agrícola Rapel was one of the companies in the area that has contributed to this growth. The Chilean capital company, which has 35 years of experience in the production of fresh fruit, arrived at El Papayo, on the left bank of the Piura River, in 2011.
Today the firm owns 4,000 hectares, 80% of which are dedicated to the planting of table grapes and, on average, it exports 4,500 containers of fruits annually. 65% of the table grapes that it exports are of the Seedless varieties and 35% of them of the Red Globe variety, stated the general manager of Rapel, Pablo Eyheralde.
“We surpassed ICA by very little. Piura exports 30 to 35 million boxes of table grapes a year. Peru exports 70 million boxes,” he stated.
The growth of this production in Piura has only been possible thanks to the investment in the sector of companies such as Sociedad Agrícola Rapel, which decided to develop the table grape industry in the region. According to Eyheralde, the firm has invested more than 300 million dollars in the more than 10 years that they've worked in Piura.
"On average, 100 hectares of grapes require producers to invest up to 6 million dollars,” Eyheralde stated.
Source: infomercado.pe / agraria.pe