How the War on Drugs got us... blueberries

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ever wondered why you can buy fresh Peruvian blueberries in the dead of winter? The answer, surprisingly, is tied to cocaine. Today on the show, we look at how the war on drugs led to an American trade policy and a foreign aid initiative that won us blueberries all year round.

And for more on trade and tariffs check out Planet Money's homepage. We've got articles looking at how much the new tariffs will raise prices and shows on everything from diamonds to potatoes to why you bought your couch.

This episode was produced by Sylvie Douglis with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Marianne McCune and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:06.6	Wow. This has been a roller coaster of a week. Trade, as we have known it for decades, has been
0:16.3	completely turned upside down. We are in a legit trade war with many countries. And underneath
0:24.3	all of these tariffs is the international flow of actual things. All these goods that people
0:31.3	buy and sell to each other across borders and oceans. So today I'm going to tell you the story of one very small thing, one good from one place
0:42.4	whose very existence in the U.S. is intertwined with our history of free trade.
0:52.5	Oh, excuse me.
0:59.6	I'm just going to reach right past you here. Winter is finally over.
1:07.3	And the thing that has kept my spirits up over this long, cold, dreary winter was one particular fruit. Blueberries, blueberries, blueberries. Love me some blueberries.
1:13.2	They're delicious, which is why I am kind of squeezing in front of someone's shopping
1:18.1	cart at my local grocery store to fill my cart.
1:21.8	I'm going to get like one, two. Sorry, am I in your way
1:30.1	they're just three dollars and fifty cents a pint
1:33.5	three
1:34.7	four I'm going to buy four of these
1:37.9	and curious thing
1:40.2	every floppy plastic
1:42.9	container I pick off the shelf says the same thing.
1:48.1	Origin? Peru. Peru in South America. More than 3,000 miles away from this grocery store.
1:56.1	When I was growing up, this was unheard of. You could not get fresh, cheap blueberries in the winter. You pretty much couldn't get any blueberries out of season. And now you can get a fresh blueberry in your local grocery store every single day of the year.
2:12.4	If you, like me, have ever wondered why that is, why it seems like blueberries from Peru are everywhere.
2:18.4	In a way, they just were not like 10 or 15 years ago, we can tell you.
	...

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