Peruvian Olive Oil Exporters Face Scrutiny as Fruit Fly Crisis Deepens

Local olive farmers are claiming that the failure to curb the spread of the Mediterranean fruit fly in southern Peru is beginning to affect the country’s olive oil exports.

“Fly control in Peru has been a failure, mainly due to the excessive use of pesticides, to the point that Spain has already issued a warning about companies sending lampante oil containing pesticides,” Gianfranco Vargas, a local producer and founder of cultural organization Sudoliva, told Olive Oil Times.

Two years after the fruit fly infestation began, fueled by unseasonably warm and humid weather in the first half of 2024, Spanish authorities have reported Peruvian lampante olive oil contaminated with chlorpyrifos and buprofezin to the European Union’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed.

Authorities said the two pesticides, the first of which is banned in the European Union, were identified in oil exported by Agroindustrias del Sur to Aceites del Sur-Coosur. Spanish companies are among the leading buyers of Peruvian lampante olive oil.

However, Yury Alfredo Bermejo Sardón, the president of producers’ association Pro Olive, told Olive Oil Times that he disagreed with the premise of Vargas’s claim, insisting that the two issues are unrelated.

“While Tacna is currently experiencing an increase in the fruit fly population, a situation that jeopardizes the region’s phytosanitary status, Senasa (the National Agrarian Health Service) and producers are implementing integrated control measures using cultural, ethological, chemical, and legal methods in accordance with established technical protocols,” he said.

“Specialists and industry representatives agree that the detected residues of chlorpyrifos and buprofezin do not correspond to products used within official fruit fly control programs,” Bermejo added.

While the contaminated oil was allowed to continue to its final destination under customs seal, Vargas warned that Peruvian authorities and farmers must find a more effective solution to stop the spread of the pest, noting that the most successful method used during previous outbreaks is no longer available.

He also warned that Peruvian authorities and farmers must find a more effective solution to stop the spread of the pest, noting that the most successful method used during previous outbreaks is no longer available.

A joint effort involving Chile, Peru and the United States from the 1950s through the 1980s released sterile fruit flies into infested areas to prevent reproduction, effectively eliminating the pest from southern Peru.

However, the program was later abandoned, and Vargas said neither Chilean nor Peruvian authorities have managed to reproduce sterile flies at scale.

“In reality, this is the only way fruit flies were controlled on both the Peruvian and Chilean borders,” he said.

Bermejo disputed Vargas’s characterization of the situation, arguing that releasing sterile flies as a form of population control would not be effective “based on technical criteria related to current FTD (flies, trap, and day) levels.”

This is “a situation that makes this strategy unfeasible and necessitates prioritizing other integrated pest management measures,” he said.

Instead, the Tacna regional government announced in March that it had purchased 12,280 liters of spinosad insecticide for distribution to 5,600 farmers, allowing treatment of roughly 27,000 hectares of infested farmland, including olive groves.

“This important support aims to reduce the impact of the fruit fly infestation,” said Ricardo Bartesaghi Del Carpio, the regional manager of economic development. “These insecticides will cover needs until the end of the year.”

The Tacna regional government also insisted that “the region maintains its status as a fruit fly free area, ensuring the competitiveness and export of its flagship products.”

Bermejo added that spinosad had only been approved for “extreme situations” under approved technical protocols.

“Senasa specialists have clarified that the [spinosad] products used are baits formulated, registered, and authorized specifically for fruit fly control, applied in a targeted manner and under approved technical protocols,” he said. “They have also indicated that the spinosad used in olive groves is applied only in extreme situations and for specific pests such as Margaronia or Palpita, and is a high-cost biological product.”

Vargas, citing experts from the University of California-Davis Olive Center, said fruit flies could develop resistance to spinosad within as little as one generation.

He also highlighted the fragmented structure of Peru’s olive sector, where many small-scale growers sell olives harvested from one- or two-hectare plots to local mills, often informally. Vargas said this has made it nearly impossible to identify the source of contaminated olives.

“In the end, there haven’t been effective control measures like those that were proposed or that have already proven successful elsewhere; nothing new has been suggested,” he said.

Despite the challenges caused by the Mediterranean fruit fly infestation, Vargas expects another recovery harvest following the record lows of 2024.

“This year the harvest seems low, but not as low as they’re saying,” he said. “There isn’t any climate event as severe as the last El Niño. The main issue hasn’t been the climate so much as the agricultural practices.”

“Most olive farmers leave the olives to ripen on the trees,” he added. “That means the following year the tree doesn’t rest as it should and doesn’t produce well.”