World's top ten blueberry producing countries

Blueberries require very specific conditions in which they can be grown, conditions which rarely occur, and hence they are generally only grown in North America. In fact, blueberry bushes were only introduced in Europe less than a century ago.

In the US, the state of Washington produces the most blueberries, and is followed by Michigan, Georgia, Oregon and then New Jersey.

Meanwhile, Maine produced around 10% of all the blueberries grown in the entire continent of North America, in terms of acres harvested. Furthermore, Canada has also been active in the blueberry growth, with the growth of blueberries accounting for around half of the total fruit production in the country.

While blueberries were historically harvested via berry picking rakes, nowadays, machine harvesters are the tool preferred by farmers to harvest blueberries, which is done via shaking the high rising cultivated blueberry bushes, to allow the berries to drop off the plant and be picked easily. Further work is being done in order to develop machinery or tools which can result in easy harvesting of low blueberry bushes, or wild bushes.

The fruit, after being harvested, is taken to a facility where it is cleaned, then packaged and finally sold. However, in Mexico, packing is often carried out by farmers directly at the site of harvesting, and even the sale may be carried out from the site. On the other hand, the fruit is sometimes also stored at different warehouses before it is sold.

To determine the 10 countries that produce the most blueberries in the world, InsiderMonkey.com referred to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Here are the countries according to blueberry production, starting with number 10:

Source: insidermonkey.com