La Araucanía: A promising future for fruit trees and the modernization of crops

14/08/2015

The classic yellow landscape that is repeated on both sides of the 5 Route after crossing the Malleco River to the south at the beginning of summer, with the wheat waiting for harvest and large machinery moving on the highway has begun to change. In recent years it has been interspersed with the green color of blueberry orchards, European hazel trees and the occasional vineyard that appears in the east.

The new panorama advances from the interior roads, especially in the north of La Araucanía, where these plantations and others of cherry and apple trees are imposed with more force than on the road.

The change -which these days is camouflaged between the ice and the frost of the low winter temperatures- is more than a sporadic visual sensation. Only between 2006 and 2012, the area of fruit trees in the region doubled, exceeding seven thousand hectares. And between that year and 2014 grew 40% more, until reaching 10.238 hectares, according to preliminary estimates of the Information Center of Natural Resources, Ciren. An increase of 170% in just eight years, in a region where the area destined for fruit barely exceeded the 500 hectares in 1982, according to the oldest official records.

The reasons behind the transformation do not only respond to climate change - in Temuco, the volume of annual rainfall has fallen by 300 millimeters per year in sixty years, between 1950 and 2013-, but it is also part of the diversification that fruit growing has experienced in all over the country during the last decades, with the introduction of species such as cranberry and European hazel, which have grown the most in the Ninth Region and which currently dominate on the surface, with more than four thousand hectares as a whole.

And the potential for fruit growing in the area is far from reaching a ceiling. On the contrary, it is estimated that it is just starting and that the soil and climate conditions are in place to grow; only in hazelnuts, for example, in an 30 thousand hectares more if there are market opportunities for the nut.

Despite this fruit boom, the annual crops that traditionally made the region the so-called "breadbasket of Chile" have not disappeared or lost relevance, and producers comment that it is increasingly common to see a mix of grains and fruit trees in fields. In wheat - the main crop of La Araucanía -, despite the 39% decrease in the planted area in the last 35 years, yields have tripled and in the last season they averaged 55,5 quintals per hectare, according to the INE, although in some areas, with the incorporation of irrigation and specialized machinery, plus the support of new technologies, they exceed 100 quintals.

However, the promising agricultural future of La Araucanía faces obstacles. According to the vision of the unions, companies and regional producers, the conflict with some Mapuche communities is by far the largest, especially because of the increasing violence of the confrontations and because there would be a 75 thousand productive hectares delivered by the National Development Corporation Indigenous (Conadi) that are not being used, according to the Conflict Barometer with Indigenous Connotation prepared by the Agricultural Development Corporation (Sofo).

As a second obstacle they mention the need to have a reservoir to ensure the availability of water for irrigation in the summer months, especially after the summer drought of 2014 and this year. They also consider that it is urgent that the agricultural careers of the universities of the area adapt more quickly to these changes, since until now they have only one class, during a semester, devoted to fruit growing.

High potential, low technical capacity

If until now the fruit production of La Araucanía represents around 2,4% of the country's total, it is expected to rise to 3,5% in ten years, according to the estimates of the Araucanía Frutícola group, which brings together 32 producers in the region.

To promote this growth they are developing a project together with Ciren to define the skills of the different soils in the region, which will be launched in December and will allow farmers to know which species is the most important when entering the role of a farm. Suitable for your land, what varieties and your water needs.

«The study evaluates the potentialities of a group of fruit trees against the characteristics of the soil and climate of the region. The species that are considered are the most promising, such as blueberries, hazel, cherry, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, walnuts and vines«, details Ciren agronomist Horacio Merlet, in charge of the initiative, which will be accessed through the internet and in which $300 million have been invested.

In the company Huertos Collipulli export cranberries, cherries and apples that its six partners produce in 710 hectares, most of them located in the northern area of La Araucanía. Since 2011 export fruits directly, in the last season they sent the first organic blueberries from Chile to China, and they are convinced that the region has a promising future that is just beginning to be explored. In fact, they intend to continue growing in plantations, mainly blueberries and apple trees, despite the lack of skilled labor that many see as limiting.

«It is a problem in all of Chile, but in our case, as we are later, we compete in blueberries with simpler orchards to harvest in the central zone, and in March here nobody wants to harvest blueberries, because they want to go to the apple ... It is a competition between regions and between crops, but we do not see it as a limitation because it is solved with training, which must be carried out every year«says the company's commercial director, Cristóbal Duke.

The president of Araucanía Frutícola, Carlos Inostroza, believes that the lack of training in the workforce is a point that could limit the growth of berries. However, he adds that this training should not be given only at the seasonal level, but also at the universities of the region, which have not incorporated fruit growing as a strong area of their meshes.

«Those who graduated four years ago from Agronomy in the area never taught them about pruning or fertigation, they are only adding a branch of fruit growing and I think we need to incorporate that culture among professionals. What is slowing down the advance of this item is the lack of technical skills, because those who are interested have to go to study in Talca or Santiago and experiment with the conditions there, but not with the local reality«, he criticizes, and suggests that there are opportunities in species such as raspberries and strawberries for small farmers, walnuts and chestnut trees for larger orchards, and in native fruits, such as murtilla, which he has been cultivating for six years and exports to the United States. with his companies Murtilla Carahue and Delight Berries.

Source: Economiaynegocios.cl