B. M. K UMAR
6.2 Partial Inventory of Amazonian Fruit Improvement Activities
6.1.2 History of Amazonian agriculture
It is thought that between 12,000 and 25,000 years ago the ancestors of the Native Amazonians arrived from the north, although the exact period of immigration is not certain. Initially, these people were hunter-gatherers, but as climates changed and forests expanded during the early Holocene, the people gradually developed food production systems (Piperno and Pearsall, 1998), domesticating both landscapes and plant populations in the process (Clement, 1999). During the last 5000 years, in particular, Amazonia became a biome strongly influenced by humans, with at least 15% modified by human activities – to such an extent that these modifications are still visible today, 400 years after the demographic collapse caused by European conquest. It is probable that most of the biome was modified to some extent (Mann, 2005). Before the conquest, there were probably between 5 and 25 million people in the Amazonian biome and these people depended principally upon horticulture for their subsistence, with a significant number of fruit crops in their diet (Clement, 1999).
After the demographic collapse (AD1600–1700), Amazonia started to be repopulated, a process that accelerated during the rubber boom (1880–1915), which brought an influx of peoples from north-eastern Brazil, the Andes, Africa and Europe. After the rubber crash (1915–1916), the immigration rate slowed until the 1970s, when national efforts to integrate Amazonia into its various Nation States and their economies accelerated, financed by cheap international credit. This immigration soon led to the current worldwide concern about environmental change in Amazonia, as all of the immigrants are agricultural peoples with varying interests, knowledge and access to capital. In Brazil alone, nearly 20% of the original forest cover has been removed since the 1970s. In general, this has contributed little to regional development, and enormous areas are now in secondary forests of varying ages. The lack of contribution to regional development is mostly because the great majority of these immigrants discovered that agriculture in Amazonia is more of a challenge than expected, especially to those who have neither much knowledge (traditional or other) about the region, nor the capital to obtain knowledge and inputs readily. This discovery, in turn, caused migration within Amazonia, this time from the countryside to the cities, although other factors obviously influenced personal decisions about migration. In Brazilian Amazonia, 80% of the population is now urban, including a considerable proportion of the Native American population and the peasants who had learned horticulture from the natives, thus leaving a large proportion of recent immigrants in the countryside – precisely those with least traditional knowledge about Amazonia. This strongly influenced decisions about which fruit trees to plant, and recent R&D on fruit trees reflects these decisions.
Pará (now Embrapa Amazônia Oriental). Work initially concentrated on cacao and gradually expanded to include minor efforts on numerous native fruits, including abiu (Pouteria caimito), bacuri (Platonia insignis Mart.), biribá (Rollinia mucosa Bail.) and cupuaçu (Theobroma grandiflorum Schumm.) (Calzavara, 1970), without, however, creating much impact in regional or national markets. The same institute pioneered studies on açaí-do-Pará (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) and peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth), but these studies also had little impact and the institution suffered from lack of continuity during the decade before the creation of Embrapa in 1973.
In the 1960s, the Instituto Agronômico da Amazônia Ocidental, Manaus, Amazonas (now Embrapa Amazônia Ocidental), started working on guaraná (Paullinia cupana Mart.) as demand grew for its caffeine-rich seed for soft drinks. This work continued both in Manaus and in Maués, Amazonas, where the multinational American Beverage Company (AmBev) has its major Amazonian plantation of this fruit crop. Field trials were organized in Bahia by the Comissão Executiva do Plano da Lavoura Cacaueira (CEPLAC). Bahia now produces nearly 80% of the guaraná used in Brazil, although R&D has increased in Amazonia. Guaraná was chosen as the target for the first Brazilian Amazonian regional genome network. This project has already determined that guaraná is a high-level polyploid and is identifying the genes involved in disease susceptibility and resistance.
In 1975, the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA: National Research Institute for Amazonia) created a fruit studies group that initially concentrated on peach palm, cupuaçu, sapota (Quararibea cordata Vischer), graviola (Annona muricata L.), araçá-boi (Eugenia stipitata McVaugh), camu- camu (Myrciaria dubia McVaugh) and cubiu (Solanum sessiliflorum Dunal) (Clement et al., 1997). This group pioneered the idea of creating agroforestry systems with fruit trees of different stature and shade tolerance, without, however, making much impact on regional or national markets (van Leeuwen et al., 1997). In the mid-1980s, the INPA group collaborated with Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (then the National Centre for Genetic Resources) and helped create the peach palm germplasm collections in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru (Clement and Coradin, 1988).
Although the group made a major impact when it identified and imported spineless peach palm from Peru for heart-of-palm production, the work with the fruit failed to increase demand in local and regional markets (Clement et al., 2004). This group is now working principally on peach palm and camu- camu and slowly expanding its activities with tucumã (Astrocaryum tucuma Mart.).
In the late 1970s, Embrapa Amazonia Oriental expanded its work on fruits again, concentrating on Brazil nut, cupuaçu, guaraná, bacuri, camu-camu, peach palm and açaí-do-Pará. During the early 1980s, they collected patauá (Oenocarpus bataua Mart.) and bacaba (Oenocarpus bacaba Mart.) with international support, but the project did not advance beyond the germplasm collection. More recently they have added uxi (Endopleura uchi Cuatrecasas).
Embrapa Amazonia Ocidental also expanded their work on fruits beyond guaraná, concentrating on cupuaçu and camu-camu. Embrapa Acre (Rio
Branco, Acre) initiated work on pineapple and peach palm, although the latter was more for heart-of-palm than for fruit.
During the last three decades, these institutions have contributed to the expansion of peach palm production for heart-of-palm, cupuaçu and açaí-do- Pará, as well as the expansion of interest in camu-camu and cubiu, principally in other parts of Brazil. The lack of greater impact is partly due to an excessive emphasis on germplasm collections rather than progeny trials designed to meet consumer demands as rapidly as possible (van Leeuwen et al., 2005) and partly to a lack of continuity in the various R&D projects. Açaí-do-Pará is a success story, however, which will be mentioned below.
While this history was unfolding in Brazil, both Peru and Colombia also invested in R&D on native Amazonian fruits. The San Roque Experiment Station, Iquitos, Peru, is a part of INIA and started collecting native fruit germplasm in 1972. Camu-camu, araçá-boi, abiu, peach palm, macambo (Theobroma bicolor H.B.K.), cacahuillo (Herrania nitida R.E. Schultes), naranjo podrido (Parahancornia peruviana Monach.), chope (Gustavia longifoliaPoepp. ex. O. Berg), among others, were collected and characterized.
Personnel affiliated with San Roque participated in the 1983–1984 USAID- financed prospecting for peach palm germplasm and established the two major Peruvian collections as a result, one at San Roque and the other at Yurimaguas (Clement and Coradin, 1988). The same period saw concentrated prospecting of camu-camu as commercial interest expanded. In the mid-1990s, INIA invited ICRAF to collaborate on fruit crop development and considerable innovative R&D was initiated, including surveys of family farmer interests and consumer preferences for native fruit (Sotelo Montes and Weber, 1997), studies of family farmer management of fruit germplasm (Brodie et al., 1997), and the beginnings of several participatory improvement projects with fruit and timber species that had been selected by family farmers (Weber et al., 2001). The genetic consequences of the participatory project with peach palm were examined in terms of conservation and improvement (Cornelius et al., 2006).
In the 1980s, the Peruvian government created the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana (IIAP), and fruit crops were included in its mandate. Their first major project was with annatto (Bixa orellanaL.), a domesticated shrub that produces a vibrant yellow-orange to red food colouring in the scarce pulp around the seeds. Between 1993 and 2005, the Amazonian Cooperation Treaty financed a wide-ranging collection of fruit species that is still being evaluated. This allowed priority-setting and interest focused on camu-camu, meto huayo (Caryodendron orinocense H. Karst.), uvilla (Pourouma cecropiifolia Mart.), aguaje (Mauritia flexuosa L.) and macambo (A. González, IIAP, 2006, personal communication). Today, IIAP leads the Peruvian R&D effort on camu-camu; this project will be examined in detail below.
Work in Colombia has also suffered from inconsistent investment, but much has been done during the past few decades. CorpoICA is the major Colombian agricultural research institution and has worked on peach palm and meta huayo (called ‘inchi’ in Colombia), among other native fruits. The Corporación Araracuara was created in the 1980s with international funding to work on
agroforestry systems and native fruit crops in Amazonia. They participated in the peach palm expeditions of 1983–1984 and created a collection at Araracuara on the Caquetá River. They also did considerable work with inchi as a nut and oil crop, but it has not been adopted by Colombian fruit growers.
In the 1990s, the Bolivian government, with support from the USA and the European Community, started a programme called Alternative Tropical Development, designed to identify and develop economically attractive alternatives to illicit coca production (Erythroxylum coca Lam.). Among the native Amazonian fruit species, they worked with camu-camu, pineapple, peach palm (for heart-of-palm) and cocoa in both monoculture orchards and agroforestry systems (F. Alemán, Bolivia, 2006, personal communication).
Although they have had some success, their impact has been limited due to the high returns available from illicit coca production.