Acai Economics

"A fruit that tastes like dirt is suddenly a sweet money maker in Brazil," reports Seth Kugel in the New York Times (2/24/10). We’re talking about acai, long a dietary staple of poor, rural Brazilians, and now "riding the wave of the antioxidant craze and rain-forest chic." Demand for acai, which grow on palm trees and look like great, big blueberries, is way up in recent years. Traditionally, it is served as porridge, but now it is finding its way into everything from Snapple beverages to pizza crusts and even beauty products. Surfers use it in smoothies, for an energy boost.

Leticia Galvao, a Brazilian, finds this funny, since acai tends to make her sleepy. "Generally, when you have acai here, you take a nap," she says. Maybe it depends how much sugar you add — locals, especially older, more rural folks, like their acai straight up, which is said to "taste like dirt. Making matters worse, the manioc flour that’s often mixed in to thicken it has the consistency of sand." But acai’s growing popularity has been a real boon, economically, for Brazil’s acai growers. "Two or three years ago, we had a lot of trouble selling the product," says Orisvaldo Ferreira de Souza, an acai farmer.

That’s all changed: "Just yesterday, six buyers came by," he says. "We sold 10 baskets each to two of them." Orisvaldo can now afford to "buy meat and chicken in town," put a motor on his boat and acquire a television set. Such success has had a negative effect, however, on urban poor families, for whom acai is "a valuable source of nutrition." Prices have gone up, although for now, acai consumption among the poor hasn’t slowed; they simply thin it down a bit. "Fifteen years ago, it was like beans for us," says Joao Manuel. "Now it’s more expensive than beans. We eat it just the same; it’s only now that we feel it in our wallets."