Since acai gained recognition as a superfood in the 2000s, it has led to an economic boom for Amazon’s farmers, but it is also threatening the rainforest’s biodiversity, as single-crop acai fields become common
Working in the sweltering heat of the Brazilian Amazon, Jose Diogo scales a tree and harvests a cluster of black berries: acai, the trendy superfood reshaping the world’s biggest rainforest—for better and worse.
Diogo, 41, who lives in a poor, remote community founded by escaped slaves, is a world away from the upscale supermarket aisles of New York or Tokyo, where berries like these are sold in sorbets, smoothies, juices, powders and pills, popularised by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Meghan Markle.
But he has a front-row view of the changes the acai craze is bringing to the Brazilian Amazon. Since acai rose to international fame in the 2000s, touted for its rich nutritional and antioxidant properties, it has unleashed an economic boom for traditional farmers in the Amazon region, and been lauded as a way to bring “green development” to the rainforest without destroying it.
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But experts say it is also threatening the Amazon’s biodiversity, as single-crop fields of acai palms become increasingly common.
Diogo, who lives in the village of Igarape Sao Joao, in the northern state of Para, is building himself a brick house thanks to the money he has made from acai.
“Things get a lot better for us every harvest season,” he says, scraping the small berries into a large basket.
He can fill 25 such baskets on a good day, bringing home between 300 and 625 Brazilian real (between HK$473 and HK$986), he says.
The berries are brought by boat to Belem, the state capital, where sweating workers carry huge loads of them to market to be sold as quickly as possible, before the fragile fruit goes bad.
Acai expansion in the Amazon causing loss of biodiversity
Long eaten by Indigenous groups, acai is a culinary mainstay in northeastern Brazil, eaten with manioc flour or used to accompany fish and other dishes.
Its deep-purple pulp shot to popularity across Brazil over the past two decades, often drunk as juice or made into a sweetened sorbet and served with fruit and granola.
From there, acai went on to win fans worldwide, from the United States to Europe, Australia and Japan, where it can sell from around US$5 (nearly HK$40) per bowl to upwards of US$20 (around HK$157) for a 100-gram packet of organic acai powder.
Brazilian exports of acai and its derivatives surged from 60 kilograms in 1999 to more than 15,000 tonnes in 2021.