A little over 20 years ago, the proposal to plant table grapes in the Piura region sounded crazy. The Ica region was already a representative territory of this crop, both for the transformation of the grape into wine and for export.

However, two decades ago, Piura embarked on the transformation of thousands of hectares of fallow land into agricultural exports. And table grapes were one of the main fruits that began to be produced and are now exported to international markets.

Among the producers of this agro-export offer is the Sociedad Agrícola Rapel, a company with Chilean capital, with 35 years of experience in the production of fresh fruit, and which settled, since 2011, on the lands of the El Papayo farmhouse, on the left bank of the Piura River.

In dialogue with Infomercado, Pablo Eyheralde, rappel general manager He said that of the 4000 hectares owned by the company, 3000 are highly productive for fruits such as table grapes, blueberries and Tahiti lemon. Of this total land, 80% is dedicated to planting and harvesting table grapes, both red globe as seedlees. The remaining percentage is held by blueberries and lemons.

The growth of this production would not have been possible without the investment of this company. According to Eyheralde, in more than 10 years of work in Piura, the investment figure exceeds US$ 300 million.

export fruits

On average, each year, Rapel exports 4500 containers of fruit. Its main export product is table grapes, of which 65% is Seedless (three-color seedless grapes: red, green and black), and 35% is Red Globe (grape with seed).

According to Eyheralde, the total production of table grapes in Piura is slightly higher than that of Ica.

“We beat Ica by very little. From Piura, 30 to 35 million boxes of table grapes are exported per year. Peru exports 70 million boxes," says the manager of Rapel.

It should be noted that in the Piura region, table grape production begins in the fortnight of September and ends at the end of December. In the south, it begins in the fortnight of November and ends on the last day of February.

"The investment in 100 hectares of grapes can reach 6 million dollars," says Eyheralde.

For its part, blueberries are a recent commercial bet. The manager of Rapel affirms that they began the production of this fruit because the lands of Piura are warm, and the climate and water are adequate for this crop. At this moment, Rapel produces 10 tons of blueberries per hectare.

"We still don't have large blueberry productions, but the production results are good. In Trujillo the best blueberry in the country is being produced due to its climatic and soil conditions; and has no contact with pests, "he said.