The 700 new hectares of mango plantations that three large companies in the sector installed a few years ago in the Olmos Valley (Lambayeque) will enter production in the 2022/2023 campaign.
After Piura, Lambayeque is Peru's second-largest mango production area. Lambayeque positioned itself as the third-largest exporter of mango in recent years and exported 232,683 tons of mango in the 2020-2021 campaign. In addition, according to records of the National Agrarian Health Service (Senasa), there were more than 3,100 producers of family organic mango agriculture in Lambayeque, which are located in the areas of Motupe, Olmos, Jayanca, and Olmos Irrigation Project.
Looking for fertilizers
Producers are concerned because fertilizers are scarce and the flowering stage, which is the ideal phase for the application of fertilizers that ensure the fruit has the quality and appropriate size for the next campaign (which begins in November), is near. They are also worried about the high costs of all inputs at the moment.
"This will certainly have an impact on production, but we still don't have an estimate on how much. We will know in November," stated Juan Carlos Rivera, general manager of the Peruvian Association of Mango Producers and Exporters (APEM). According to the information that the guild has received to date, producers - especially from Piura - are willing to reduce the number of fertilizers they use or not apply them at all.
The truth of the matter is that 70% of the Peruvian mango production chain is in the hands of small and medium-sized farmers, which face great difficulties to pay the high price of urea. According to the National Agrarian Health Service (Senasa), 80% of the 5,780 small producers that are integrated into the mango export chain own less than five hectares.
