Annona Species Monograph.pdf - Crops for the Future

Chapter 4. Major and Minor Production Areas
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area of 480 ha and has been expanding. Like soursop, the development of
agroindustry and the reasonable price of fresh fruits have encouraged sugar
apple growers to expand cultivated areas. Currently, the sugar apple and
atemoya areas are moving into north-eastern and northern Minas Gerais
State, mainly to the major irrigation projects, where small fruit growers
produce excellent fruits and sell them to retailers in the Brasilia and Belo
Horizonte markets.
4.2 Minor Production Areas
Several factors impede the production and marketing of the lesser known
annonas, and scattered cultivation and harvesting from the wild continues,
e.g., wild soursop in Africa and custard apple in Brazil. Other important
factors are management of pollination, pests and diseases, financial support
for growers, highly seasonal harvesting period, organoleptic quality, short
shelf-life, other commercial opportunities and, finally, marketing. Each
minor production area is limited by one or more of these factors.
Carlos Furche (Diretor of the Oficina de Estudios y Politicas Agrarias del
Chile - ODEPA, July 2000, personal communication ) indicated that Israel,
with 50 ha, represents one of the important countries with minor production
of cherimoya. Palacios Rangel and Cano Garcia (1997) state that there was a
small area of cherimoya in Mexico (31 ha in 1990).
Portugal (Madeira) had an area of 85 ha of cherimoya in 1996 (Nunes, 1997).
This area was very important in supporting Portuguese demand for this fruit.
In Italy, an area of 30 ha under cherimoya has been reported, located in the
coastal part of Calabria (Monastra, 1997).
There are no official statistics on the production areas of cherimoya in Brazil,
although Paraná, São Paulo and Minas Gerais States have small areas with
appropriate microclimates and altitudes above 1,400 m. Generally, these
cherimoya areas are cultivated by fruit growers of European origin settled in
Brazil. Bonaventure (1999) stated that cherimoya and atemoya occupy an
area of 80 ha in Brazil. However, the cultivated area of atemoya in Northeast
of Brazil is expanding very quickly. The reason for increasing the area
planted to cherimoya and atemoya is their excellent organoleptic qualities,
which make these fruits ideal for export.
In Mexico, sugar apple was produced in an area of 12 ha, with a total
production of 73 MT, in 1990, and an estimated yield of 6 MT/ha. Egypt is
also a representative of the minor areas of production, since the total acreage