ry harvest, which began in August and runs until early December, injected about 240 million pesos (39 million dollars) into the economy of the region that links Rosario with Santa Fe, the main spot where this fruit is grown.This sum is the result of taking the average yield of an acre of strawberries and multiplying it by 414 hectares, the amount of hectares that were planted in the province of Santa Fe in 2013 according to a report from the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA). The calculations also took into account the losses suffered by some 30 producers of the province’s north due to two hailstorms.
The most significant part of the production is concentrated in the town of Coronda, about 120 miles north of Rosario, and its surroundings, however the production gradually extends throughout the corridor linking Rosario and Santa Fe, on Route 11.
The producers usually work on small plots of no more than 7 or 8 hectares and they plant about 50,000 plants per hectare, each of which generates, on average, a kilo of ripe fruit. This season, they sold a kilo at about 12 pesos (U.S. $1.94), although its price could go up to 40 pesos (U.S. $6.47) on the supermarket shelf.
The production has had a major boost since 2008, when the multivariate culture proliferated due to market conditions and the search for precocity.
The province of Santa Fe tops the national production list, followed by Tucumán and Buenos Aires. In total, the country cultivates between 1,000 and 1,250 hectares of the fruit per year and the domestic market absorbs over 80 percent of the production.
