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| Tomatoes at Lo Valledor Produce Market |
What a fun, busy day we’ve had! We started our morning with a visit to the
produce market of Lo Valledor in the Santiago metropolis. German Faundez and Enrique spoke to us
briefly of the history of the market, which was started in 1968 by a group of
community members. The market is a major
part of Santiago’s economy, as growers come from all around the area, some as
far as 3-4 hours away. There is no meat
sold at the market, just produce (which include nuts). Vendors pay an entrance fee and then may park
their vehicle or set up their stand anywhere in the grounds. They then pay a value-added tax of 19% at
some point. All produce is inspected by
their government entity that is equivalent to our USDA. An interesting fact we learned is that 15% of
produce in Santiago is sold through supermarkets, otherwise it’s all sold
through this market or some sort of street vendors.
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| Ears of corn for sale |
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| Beans |
After our initial talk, we walked around the market to
look at all the different fruits and veggies.
We sampled avocados, pears, and grapes.
Everything was delicious! We
couldn’t get over how big some of the items were-ears of corn, onions,
cucumbers, peppers—it was very cool!
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| Garlic at the produce market |
Our next stop brought us to the U.S. Embassy, where we
heard from Rachel Bickford, Agricultural Attache, and Agricultural Specialists,
Luis and Nelson. Rachel started her
presentation with a video made to promote Chilean agriculture, which you can
view here if interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBzQK2UElDg
Here are some quick statistics from Rachel’s
presentation:
One out of every four Chileans works in the ag industry.
Chile produces 7,000-11,000 tons of honey each year. Bees are vital to their fruit production.
Chile’s pork industry has had an annual average growth
rate of about 8.3% for the last decade.
U.S. imports from Chile increased 1.4 billion dollars
over the last decade-a 96% increase. Our
biggest imports from them is fruit: blueberries, strawberries, grapes, etc.
U.S. exports to Chile have also increased over the past
decade. Those items include wheat (#1),
feeds, and poultry.
We learned a lot about our relationship with Chile when
it comes to agriculture.
On our way to the coast, we
stopped in Casablanca, which as of last year, is the “Wine Capitol of the
World”. It’s quite the cute little
town-no stoplight, people wave and smile at each other, and everyone was
friendly. It felt a little more like
home (except that we needed an interpreter, of course!). Alfonso, the town’s Director of Rural Economic
Development, gave us a brief history of the town and showed us a video filmed in
town to promote tourists. It was
interesting to hear that some of their biggest struggles to keep agriculture
alive in their community are also some that we face back in South Dakota. They struggle to get the “young generation”
to stay on the wineries and farms to take it over and keep the family tradition
going. It’s more appealing to go into a
bigger city to make twice as much money in half the amount of time. He commented that the younger generation
lives differently and many family traditions have been lost and they don’t seem
to understand or appreciated where their food comes from.
We arrived in Vina del Mar about 6:45pm (our time) and
had some great, fresh seafood along the coast.
Cayla Christiansen,
Reporter
