The Strawberry Industry in South America

Abstract

The strawberry (Fragaria ×ananassa Duch.) was cultivated in South America long before the Spanish arrived on the continent. Native Fragaria chiloensis L. was domesticated over 1000 years ago by the Picunches in central Chile (Hancock et al., 1999). During the Spanish period of exploration and conquest in the mid- to late 1500s, F. chiloensis was spread throughout South America and major industries developed around Cuzco, Peru; Bogota, Colombia; and Ambato, Ecuador. European cultivars of F. ×ananassa were probably introduced into South America in the late 1800s (Folquer, 1986), and California cultivars in the 1960s. These rapidly replaced most of the traditional F. chiloensis plantings, first through introgression, and finally through pure cultivar plantings. Today, cultivars of F. ×ananassa are found in almost all South American countries, flourishing in tropical, subtropical, and southeastern South America, where the climate is strongly conditioned by fresh South Atlantic winds, with average temperatures ranging from 11 °C in July to 24 °C in January. The South American industry accounts for ≈4% of the total world strawberry production, but the strawberry plays important social and economic roles on the continent, since strawberry farms employ ≈50,000 full- or part-time workers. Strawberries are a popular item in local markets and are an exported commodity (Cicare, 1999). This paper describes the strawberry industry in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Ecuador. The first four countries are members of the Mercado Comun del Sur (MERCOSUR) or South American Free Trade Agreement, which is similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Brazil, Argentina and Chile are responsible for most of the South American strawberry production, while production in Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador is less developed (Table 1).