Systems Approach mode

El Regional Director of SAG de Bio Bio, Iván Ramírez, He stressed that “this is a system that we have to promote as a Service, but that we also have to take care of, because we did very well last season. At the Inspection Site in Cabrero we inspected around 4,2 million boxes of fresh blueberries, of which the 37% corresponds to fruit produced under the modality of Systems Approach for Biobío and Ñuble. It is an important volume that we are taking out under this modality and that has a different treatment in terms of its acceptance and its price in the United States market. In addition, this has another implication in the case of organic products, since this condition is recognized at destination ”.

El Regional Director of the SAG de Ñuble, Eduardo Jeria, indicated that “the rate of increase in surface area and orchards that have the possibility of entering the Ñuble region it's extremely important. In the season 2020-2021, the number of properties that had the possibility of joining Systems Approach was 259, of which 93 they ascribed to this work methodology. For the coming season the number of properties that can participate reaches 347, thanks to the progress made in the control of Lobesia botrana. Also to highlight the approval of a FNDR project to complement the pest control actions in urban sectors ”.

Better market access

For his part, Andrés Armstrong, Chairman of the Cranberry Committee, He pointed out that “the Systems Approach allows a large part of the producers in the Bio Bio and Ñuble regions to have better access conditions to the North American market. We need to take care of this Systems Approach because it allows us to arrive with non-fumigated fruit and compete in better condition with blueberries produced in other parts of the world ”.

The Systems Approach is a set of pest risk management measures that guarantees the sanitary conditions imposed by the United States as an alternative to fumigation with methyl bromide, which reduces the quality of the fruit and also implies that it loses its status as organic.

Bio Bio and Ñuble

In the Bio Bio and Ñuble regions there are 647 blueberry orchards, of which 439 can be assigned to the Systems Approach, with a surface of 4.060 hectares, corresponding to 92 producers from the Bio Bio region, with 1.441 hectares, who will be able to send their fruit to the United States and will be able to carry out the sanitary inspection at the Fresh Fruit Inspection Site in Cabrero, reducing the transport times and the cost of shipping the samples.

During the meeting, details were also given on the plague Lobesia botrana announced the situation of the plague, with emphasis on Bio Bio - Ñuble.