Peru’s farm exports rose just 1.9% to US$8.005 billion from January to August, after growing 21% in the same period in 2025 and 20% in 2024, exporters’ association ADEX said on Thursday, 8 October. A year earlier, exporters shipped US$7.856 billion in farm goods. Small producers now face weather damage to crops and uncertainty over the late-year fruit harvest.
Export Growth and Its Limits
Agro-industrial goods, which Peru classifies as non-traditional exports, accounted for 90.3% of farm exports. Their value increased 1.8% to US$7.231 billion. Fruit sales reached US$4.561 billion: blueberry exports rose 47.9% in value, grapes 17.6% and avocados 8.3%.
The overall increase concealed declines in several months. Five of the first eight months recorded growth, but exports fell 4.8% in May, 0.9% in June and 2.8% in July, according to figures reported by business daily Gestión. August shipments recovered 1.5%.
The United States is the largest buyer of Peruvian farm goods, including fruit, vegetables and coffee. Together, the United States, the Netherlands and Spain take 57% of Peru’s non-traditional farm exports. Earlier ADEX data showed U.S. buyers took US$1.4 billion of those goods from January to May, nearly twice the Dutch figure.
Peru supplies U.S. shoppers with blueberries, grapes, avocados and asparagus in the off-season. Shipments of traditional farm goods to the United States, mainly coffee, rose 16.1%. Farm exports made up about a tenth of the country’s total exports during January to August.
Crop Losses and Small Producers
In San Martín, an Amazon region that grows about half of Peru’s cocoa, heavy rain and humidity from March to May damaged flowering and ripening. Cocoa volumes fell. Larger harvests in Ivory Coast and Ghana also pushed world cocoa prices lower.
Mangoes, fresh asparagus, citrus and cocoa powder shipped in lower volumes. Coffee exports edged up 0.6% to US$701.7 million, helped by an early harvest that ADEX linked to El Niño.
José Antonio Mejía, chair of ADEX’s coffee and cocoa committee, said this year’s harvest lacked its usual peak in June and July, with declines of 15% to 30%. He warned the trend could continue until year’s end and called for a plant-health campaign and more resources for small producers.
ADEX warned that El Niño, a periodic Pacific warming that brings heat and heavy rain to Peru, could affect northern crops such as blueberries. Northern farm regions, including Piura and La Libertad, grow much of the fruit Peru sells abroad. The late-year blueberry and grape harvests peak toward year’s end, but the extent of any damage remains unclear.
State Monitoring, No New Forecast
Peru’s state committee monitoring El Niño, ENFEN, issues updates every two weeks. Its latest update came on 28 September. ENFEN said in May that coastal El Niño conditions could last until February 2027, Gestión reported. The committee expected to issue its next communiqué in mid-October.
ADEX hasn’t said how much El Niño contributed to the export slowdown; it attributed cocoa losses to heavy rain. Peru’s government hasn’t published a new farm export forecast. ADEX’s next monthly report should show whether September brought a recovery, while the association’s full release text wasn’t available online and detailed figures relied on its summary and Gestión’s report.
Peru’s total exports rose 34.3% to US$74.1 billion on mining, ADEX said on 6 October. Farm exports grew far more slowly, leaving the late-year harvest and conditions facing small producers central to the sector’s outlook.