Wearing floppy hats and face masks, hundreds of workers carefully harvest a bumper crop of blueberries on the sunny slopes of the Groenlandberg, a spur of South Africa's Hottentots Holland Mountains.

Declared a superfood, the purplish fruit has enabled South African growers to ride through the setbacks of the coronavirus pandemic, exporting basket after basket of berries throughout the year.

At Chiltern's blueberry farm, workers surrounded by brush delicately packed small dark blue balls into neatly stacked boxes ready for shipment.

Global demand for blueberries has grown 12 percent a year since 2013, according to the International Trade Center.

What fuels the rise is the fruit's well-marketed health properties.

Blueberries are packed with antioxidants, molecules that fight stubborn compounds called free radicals, which are linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments.

Chiltern farm manager Anton Both said business had exploded over the past decade.

“It was around 80 tons when I started here 10 years ago and now we are harvesting around 1.400 tons,” he said.

They both said that farm owners had bought more land to meet demand.

Now more than 600 workers are needed to collect berries during the harvest season.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

In the valleys below, other farms have followed suit, destroying historic apple orchards and strawberry fields, replacing them with rows of net-covered blueberry bushes.

The investments have helped South African blueberry production to grow 40-fold in the past 12 years - 24.000 tonnes are projected to be harvested this year alone, according to the South African Berry Growers Association, also known as BerriesZA.

More than 90 percent of the country's blueberries are sold abroad, mainly in Europe and Great Britain.

The record 2020 harvest is expected to raise more than 2 billion rand ($ 130 million, € 109 million), a boon for an economy that was already staggering before being hit by the coronavirus.

According to official figures, South Africa's gross domestic product collapsed by 51 percent annualized in the second quarter of 2020, and more than 30 percent of the workforce is unemployed, the highest level since 2008.

“We have great varieties and high-quality fruit,” said Elzette Schutte, manager of BerriesZA.

“We are closer to Europe and the UK than (competitors) Peru or Chile,” he added. And South Africa's blueberry production was out of season for its export market.

While South Africa is still overshadowed by blueberry growing giants like the United States and Canada, Schutte said growers were competing for markets in China and South Korea that would further expand the industry.

"We expect international demand to increase as awareness of this superfood increases," he told AFP.

LOCAL GIFTS

Most of the country's blueberries are grown in the Western Cape province, which is also home to rolling vineyards and the coastal city of Cape Town.

Official figures show that the value of exports in the province has already increased from R 133 million in 2013 to more than R 2018 billion in XNUMX.

More than 2.700 hectares (6.700 acres) are under blueberry cultivation in the Western Cape fruit belt, a ten-fold increase from five years ago.

Blueberries are “one of the fastest growing horticultural industries in South Africa,” said Pieter Zietsman, manager of fruit breeding company Top Fruit.

The harvest also has a higher return on investment than most other fruits, he added, although it requires more startup capital.

Despite the boom, agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo said the value of blueberry exports remains small compared to other crops like corn, soybeans and citrus.

"Berry (production) has not reached a volume where one can worry about oversupply," Sihlobo told AFP.

"It's not a discussion we would have about these crops for at least the next decade."