How Farmers in Peru and Chile Work Together to Stop the Fruit Fly

Summary

Tacna in Peru and Arica in Chile are con­sid­ered twin towns, with close ties due to fam­ily con­nec­tions and shared his­tory. Fruit fly out­breaks in Tacna are threat­en­ing cen­turies-old olive trees, lead­ing to con­cerns about the impact on olive pro­duc­tion in the region and prompt­ing efforts to find solu­tions through inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion and research.

“Since time immemo­r­ial, Tacna in the south of Peru and Arica in the Azapa Valley in the north of Chile have con­sid­ered each other as twin towns,” said Gianfranco Vargas, founder of Sudoliva, an ini­tia­tive focus­ing on the preser­va­tion and recog­ni­tion of cen­tury-old olive trees in the Americas.

Indeed, Tacna and Arica are only 40 kilo­me­ters apart. ​“It is com­mon to find Tacna and Arica res­i­dents with fam­ily ties and prop­er­ties in both loca­tions,” Vargas said. 

“Soon after the estab­lish­ment of the Viceroyalty of Peru by Spain in the 16^th cen­tury— when the first olive cut­tings arrived in Lima from Seville — Azapa became an olive-grow­ing val­ley, and before the War of the Pacific, the Azapa Valley belonged to the Republic of Peru,” he added.

Nowadays, olive pro­duc­ers from Tacna and Arica are involved in a com­plex inter­play of trade dynam­ics that have been devel­op­ing over the years along the bor­der between Peru and Chile.

The lat­est news from Peru is con­cern­ing and involves a sig­nif­i­cant out­break of the Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis cap­i­tata) in Tacna this month.

“In 2007, the regions of Tacna and Moquegua were declared free of fruit fly, but flies have returned to Tacna and are now a prob­lem,” said Rubén Centeno, pres­i­dent of the Association of Organic Olive Producers of Tacna (Aprecoliv). 

“Recently, they have been detected in sweet pep­pers, guabas, guava-pears and che­r­i­moya, which are the fruits where fruit flies are most preva­lent in this area,” he added.

Due to the lack of con­trol of the Mediterranean fruit fly attack, which occurred in Tacna between 1925 and 1940, cen­turies-old olive trees had to be felled. This did not hap­pen in Arica, where mon­u­men­tal trees are part of the rural land­scape and a sym­bol of the Azapa Valley.

“Agricultural activ­ity on both sides of the bor­der takes place in a desert envi­ron­ment,” said Roxana Gardilic Boero, pres­i­dent of the Azapa Valley Olive Growers Association. ​“The area has a priv­i­leged coastal desert cli­mate, with min­i­mum rain­fall and mild tem­per­a­tures.”

Still, fruit fly attacks have been exac­er­bated in the past by extreme tem­per­a­tures in a coastal ecore­gion whose cli­matic con­di­tions are influ­enced by the Humboldt cur­rent and the atmos­pheric inter­ac­tions between the ocean and the moun­tains, cre­at­ing a favor­able cli­mate for olive cul­ti­va­tion. 

However, the area may be affected by El Niño-Southern Oscillation cli­mate phe­nom­e­non — a recur­ring period of unusu­ally warm sea sur­face tem­per­a­tures in the equa­to­r­ial Pacific Ocean.

Due to the country’s nat­ural con­fig­u­ra­tion, sur­rounded by the Andes, the Antarctic ice, the Pacific Ocean and the Atacama Desert, the nat­ural dis­sem­i­na­tion of the Mediterranean fruit fly is nat­u­rally pre­vented. 

The only pos­si­ble means of entry for the pest is the area in north­ern Chile, specif­i­cally the Tacna-Arica bor­der, through the smug­gling of infested fruit and the ille­gal entry of fruit via autho­rized bor­der cross­ings.

According to offi­cial data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Chile was the only coun­try in South America that was free from fruit flies in 2021. 

The min­istry warned that, due to the intense tourist and com­mer­cial traf­fic in the region, Chile is exposed to a con­stant risk from this pest, despite the strict sur­veil­lance mea­sures it has put in place along the bor­der.

The port of Arica, which oper­ates as Tacna’s main port for export­ing its olives and olive oil, is there­fore also a sen­si­tive area. 

“The area has become a key eco­nomic dri­ver, and there is a flow of tourists between Peru and Chile going through the Tacna bor­der,” Vargas said.

Most olive grow­ers in the Azapa Valley are fruit grow­ers who also pro­duce mango, papaya and orange, among other crops, and they are exposed to the Mediterranean fruit fly. 

“Therefore, the risk of fruit flies affect­ing olives is always present because once the fly arrives, it has no other host and will attack the olive tree,” Gardilic warned.

“In the Azapa Valley, 98 per­cent of the 3,800 hectares of cul­ti­vated land are owned by small farm­ers on land­hold­ings of less than five hectares,” she added. Moreover, ​“194 pro­duc­ers belong to the Azapa Valley Olive Growers Association and olive groves occupy 498 hectares.”

Across the bor­der, in the La Yarada-Los Palos dis­trict of the Tacna region, olive pro­duc­tion is far more impor­tant in vol­ume com­pared with the Azapa Valley in Chile. 

“In our dis­trict, crops cover 41,000 hectares and, of these, 31,000 hectares are devoted to olive grow­ing,” said Alex Zeballos Maura, man­ager of Aprecoliv.

Aprecoliv brings together 47 asso­ci­a­tions and coop­er­a­tives in La Yarada-Los Palos, cov­er­ing 10,500 hectares, 70 per­cent of which are organ­i­cally farmed. 

“The main prob­lems we have in this area have to do with the fer­til­iza­tion meth­ods and with con­ven­tional cul­ti­va­tion, apart from the inci­dence of sev­eral pests, includ­ing the fruit fly,” Centeno said.

“The fruit fly in La Yarada-Los Palos has had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on peach, avo­cado and grape crops, while for the olive crop, it is still under inves­ti­ga­tion,” Zeballos added. ​“SENASA — Peru’s National Agricultural Health Service, the phy­tosan­i­tary agency of the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation — is cur­rently inves­ti­gat­ing this issue, which is not a sim­ple mat­ter.”

SENASA has imple­mented a national fruit fly sur­veil­lance sys­tem, which includes cam­paigns aimed at erad­i­cat­ing the fruit fly and pro­vides the essen­tial data needed dur­ing nego­ti­a­tions related to main­tain­ing and open­ing up new export mar­kets. 

However, SENASA is cur­rently lack­ing suf­fi­cient fund­ing since rad­i­cal bud­get cuts have led to the lay­off of field work­ers. 

“As a result, it is no longer able to con­trol the fruit fly effi­ciently. It has sent indi­vid­ual let­ters to all farm­ers inform­ing them that they will no longer be respon­si­ble and that pest con­trol will be the farm­ers’ respon­si­bil­ity,” Centeno explained. ​“SENASA has admit­ted that it feels over­whelmed and that it is prov­ing very dif­fi­cult to bring the fruit fly under con­trol.”

Margot Ríos Mamani, Aymara National Councilor for Mallku and T’alla of Rural Arica, and an active mem­ber of sev­eral asso­ci­a­tions related to indige­nous rural women, voiced her con­cern about the impact of fruit flies on the area. 

“Smugglers are bring­ing in fruit and veg­eta­bles from across the bor­der from Peru into Chile and are doing much harm to the region and its farm­ers”, Ríos said. ​“The fruit fly is here to stay, and there is no insur­ance or sub­sidy to mit­i­gate farm­ers’ losses.” 

She blames the lack of a regional strat­egy to fight against the fruit fly. 

“There is con­sid­er­able mis­in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing the fruit fly,” Ríos said. ​“Under Law nº 18.755 of 1989, as amended in 2022, pro­vi­sions have been made con­cern­ing sub­si­dies for farm­ers, and we con­sider that those affected by the fruit fly could ben­e­fit from them, although they have not been imple­mented so far.”

Together with Senator José Durán, Ríos has been work­ing on the fruit fly prob­lem in the Chilean Senate’s agri­cul­ture com­mit­tee, address­ing var­i­ous issues of con­cern to farm­ers.

“We have been work­ing on the fruit fly prob­lem for many years to find ways to erad­i­cate it in the region,” Durana said. ​“Agriculture is part of the regional devel­op­ment strat­egy and one of the most impor­tant eco­nomic sec­tors, both in terms of invest­ment and job cre­ation.”

“As a first line of action, we want to strengthen the reg­u­la­tory frame­work,” he added. ​“Anyone who is cur­rently bring­ing fruit or veg­eta­bles into Chile ille­gally is only receiv­ing a fine. We are plan­ning to toughen the penal­ties for smug­glers so that their vehi­cle will be seized and they shall be liable to impris­on­ment.”

Durana also pro­posed help­ing mango and guava farm­ers, which are host crops of the fruit fly.

The law­mak­ers plan to present con­crete pro­pos­als to the gov­ern­ment by the end of April. Following talks with farm­ers, the aim is to estab­lish a stan­dard agri­cul­tural pol­icy to pro­tect both Arica and Tacna.

“We must con­tinue fight­ing to ensure a level play­ing field for farm­ers affected by the fruit fly in the region of Arica and Parinacota,” Ríos said.

Trying to find alter­na­tive strate­gies to address these prob­lems, Aprecoliv in Peru wants to focus on the role that the National Institute for Agrarian Innovation (INIA) in Tacna could play, in asso­ci­a­tion with uni­ver­si­ties, pri­vate com­pa­nies and the regional gov­ern­ment.

“INIA’s research facil­i­ties in Tacna are huge, but they are cur­rently in a state of neglect,” Zeballos said. ​“We would like to explore the pos­si­bil­ity of allow­ing pri­vate com­pa­nies work­ing in ento­mol­ogy to con­duct their research on INIA’s premises and col­lab­o­rate with the uni­ver­si­ties.”

Even in Chile, ​“mea­sures against the fruit fly never seem to be suf­fi­cient,” Gardilic said. ​“We feel that it is impor­tant that insti­tu­tions like the Agricultural Development Institute take the nec­es­sary mea­sures to pro­tect our olive trees and sup­port farm­ers, as agri­cul­ture feeds the world and nur­tur­ing the land is imper­a­tive.”

Sudoliva is cur­rently explor­ing phy­tosan­i­tary and tech­ni­cal solu­tions to pre­vent and tackle any fruit fly attack through an ongo­ing ini­tia­tive in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Tacna regional gov­ern­ment.

They are cur­rently dis­cussing the sign­ing of an inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion agree­ment with experts in fruit fly con­trol from the University of California, Davis, Olive Center, as well as other uni­ver­si­ties and inde­pen­dent pro­fes­sion­als based in California.

“The objec­tive is to lever­age their expe­ri­ence in the effi­cient man­age­ment of this pest in Californian olive groves so that olive grow­ers in Tacna and Azapa can con­trol it effi­ciently and meet the nec­es­sary stan­dard to export their prod­ucts to the United States with­out hur­dles,” Vargas said. ​“This would also rein­force importers’ con­fi­dence in the qual­ity and safety of olives and olive oils from Tacna and Azapa.”

• La Republica
• Chilean Ministry of Agriculture
• Peruvian National Agricultural Health Service