Rolling in Blue: Zimbabwe Now World’s Largest Blue...

Rolling in Blue: Zimbabwe Now World’s Largest Blueberry Exporter

Audrey Galawu

Zimbabwe has been listed as the largest exporter of blueberries in the whole world with a 63% increase in exports over the past five years according to an EastFruit report.

According to the report, new plantations are established mainly by investors from neighbouring South Africa, who often diversify or even move production to this country due to very favourable climatic conditions, availability of high-quality water for irrigation and inexpensive labour.

In addition, recently there has been an increase in investments from other countries into development of new blueberry plantations in Zimbabwe.

Economist at the investment department of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Andrij Yarmak said since blueberry production in Zimbabwe is developed mainly by investors who already have experience growing blueberries in similar climatic conditions, the productivity of the plantations and the quality of the products are quite high.

“As a result, Zimbabwe’s blueberry exports are currently growing faster than any other country in the world. On average over the past five years, Zimbabwe has increased blueberry exports by 63% each year or by 1 200 tonnes. In 2022, exports grew by 85% or 2.3 thousand tons and exceeded 5 thousand tons, which allowed the country to enter the top 15 countries in blueberry exports and overtake Serbia in volume,” he said.

EastFruit has further predicted a 30-40% increase and 6.5-7.0 thousand tons adding that the country can make good money in the new season considering that Peru did not make a good harvest.

Speaking to Zim Now, Fairmark CEO Clarence Mwale said it is a pleasure for most farmers to be given an opportunity to be involved in Blueberry production as a high-value chain product.

“We actually need more farmers to be involved in Blueberry farming. As you are aware, we only have 600 hectares in the whole country and we have the biggest production but it would be better to have new farmers coming in as well.

“Blueberries are a high-value chain product and it requires a lot of money and it would be good if there was access funding to help the farmers,” Mwale said.

Fair-Mark is a multi-national company founded by Mwale to support food and agriculture industries in meeting compliance and responsible sourcing requirements for international markets.

A substantial portion of Zimbabwe’s blueberries is exported to South Africa, possibly for subsequent re-exports, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Middle East countries, and Russia.