The blueberry has positioned itself as the star product of the Peruvian agro -export basket. Although the campaign of 2024-2025 ended last month, at the end of 2024 registered a shipping volume of 326,000 tons, 57% above the one that accumulated in the 2023 period. In detail, 55% of exports were allocated to the United States, 21% to the Netherlands and 9% to Hong Kong, the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation reported (Midagri).
As the North American country leads the market list, its economic policies place in an alarm situation to the country. Thus, the doubt about whether there will be an impact of 10% tariffs on the success that this purple berry has achieved.
Gabriel Amaro, president of the Association of Agrarian Producing Guilds of Peru (AGAP), identifies one of the first consequences after the tariff decision of Donald Trump. “When there is an external risk, the first thing that suffers is the cost of credit. All companies work with cash flow and financing. If you are more ‘risky’, because your market is more expensive, they impose some barrier,” he argues.
In that line, it notes that importers are asking, in some cases, to share the cost overrun and, in others, transfer it to the productive sector.
In this way, the announcement of the US government about imports differentiated to imports, which in the case of Peru amount to 10%, represents a new challenge for the national agricultural sector.
Recently, Amaro stressed the importance of Congress to approve the new Agrarian Law, as a key tool to strengthen the sector against an increasingly changing international context. Amaro also highlighted the need to continue promoting the opening of new strategic markets of Asia as well as new TLCs with India and Türkiye, to diversify our exports, among other actions.
An agricultural sector source confirmed to management that, in effect, this risk is located, above all, in the field of small exporters. “In Peru there are 12 large exporting companies, 38 medium and quite small companies. The latter are those that could suffer the cost of 10% given their small negotiating capacity for prices,” he said.
According to the Guild Association for Export and Marketing of Cutles of Peru, Prolars us, Peru has gone from exporting a total of 12,951 tons of fresh blueberries at the end of the 2015-2016 campaign to 224,889 tons in the 2023-2024 campaign. The country was consolidated for the third consecutive year as the main exporter.
