Eye Trip: March 2010

If you haven't had a chance to taste this amazing fruit, also known as the custard apple, you need to! It's by far the best fruit I've ever had in my life, and Mark Twain once said that it's "the most delicious fruit known to men." Native to the Andean valleys of Ecuador and Peru, the cherimoya has the texture of a soft pear and the flavors are a blend of banana, pineapple, strawberry, papaya and a touch of bubblegum!

The problem with the cherimoya is that it's very susceptible to pests and the soft flesh is easily damaged during transport. Small farmers south of Loja have been growing cherimoyas for many years, but the quality has been pretty poor and no supermarkets were interested in the sub-par fruits. In local markets, the farmers could only get 12 or 13 cents for each kilogram of fruit, further exacerbating poverty in one of the poorest regions in Ecuador. To improve quality, my organization, Nature and Culture International, along with other regional organizations and the European Union, started the Cherla Project to teach farmers how to grow better quality fruits using better seed selection and germination techniques, pruning techniques for increasing the yield of each tree, improved transportation methods, and a technique in which a fine mesh enclosure is placed over each of the young fruits to protect them from insects while growing. The project was a great success and now major supermarkets have taken notice and are paying the farmers $1.25/kilogram for these high-quality cherimoyas - a ten-fold increase in the price! The farmers involved in the program are extremely motivated since they can now purchase basic goods for their families and invest in the education of their children.