EL CALAFATE, SANTA CRUZ, ARGENTINA — The sweet calafate, or Magellan barberry, similar in size and color to a blueberry, grows on a thorny evergreen shrub native to the flat plains of southern Argentina and Chile. Because of its resistance to strong winds, droughts and extreme temperatures, the calafate became the symbol and name of this Patagonian town.
"Whoever eats the calafate berry will someday return," each tourist who comes to see the nearby Perito Moreno glacier is told.
Along Avenida del Libertador, El Calafate's main street, specialty shops and cafes offer calafate jam (whose taste and texture resembles blackberry preserves), calafate ice cream and even calafate liqueur. However, it's uncertain how long visitors will be able to enjoy this local delicacy. Signs hanging from houses and stores around town that read, "We buy calafate berries," suggest a troubling shortage. For many locals, calafate is more than just a sweet fruit: it is also a source of livelihood — one that is in jeopardy.
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"Calafate berries aren't growing as much as they used to," says Nélida Paz Suárez, owner of Estancia Franka, which sells her homemade calafate jam and liqueur. "Last year I gathered 660 pounds. This year I was expecting at least 800, but I could only harvest 350. And the berries are getting smaller and losing their sweetness." Other local calafate jam makers report the same, she says.
Suárez has been in the calafate business for eight years. For decades, her family has raised sheep on their 40,000-acre ranch. In 2000, when tourism became the major economic activity in El Calafate, they began to give tours of their ranch, and to market calafate.
While Suárez said she believes the decline in calafate harvest is due to the lack of rain last year, others blame the toll that high demand is taking on the wild shrub. Calafate berries are being harvested at an unsustainable rate, says local biologist and nursery owner Marcela Morgan . "That's why you see those signs all over town."
The way the berry is gathered also affected its growth. "Pickers beat the plant with sticks to make berries fall off the branches," Morgan says, to avoid getting pricked by thorns that protect the berry. This process, however, damages fruit buds on the branches from which future calafate grows.
Yet there may be hope. For the past three years, the National Agricultural and Technical Institute (NATI) in El Calafate has been experimenting with cultivating calafate in greenhouses. "It will take about five years for these plants to give berries," says Morgan. If successful, it could provide an alternative for calafate-jam producers who now rely on the wild plant. NATI agronomist Julio Cabanas is optimistic they will be able to raise the fruit sustainably.
Until then, local jam makers and berry pickers will have to wait and see how much fruit they can harvest next season. "I don't know how long I'll be able to do this," says Suárez. "I would like business to continue, but I depend on the calafate berries to grow."
