Brazil's Vale do São Francisco supplies year-round Tommy Atkins and Palmer to Europe and North America — modern, irrigated, export-driven production.
Brazil grows mangoes both for its enormous internal market and as one of the largest exporters to Europe. Production centres on the Vale do São Francisco — a hot, semi-arid valley straddling Pernambuco and Bahia that's been transformed by irrigation into one of the most productive mango regions on earth, capable of cropping nearly every month of the year.
The export portfolio leans on Florida-origin cultivars selected for shelf life: Tommy Atkins, Palmer, Keitt and Kent dominate the orchards, picked firm and shipped green. Inside Brazil, older Portuguese-era varieties like Espada and Rosa still grow in backyard trees from the Northeast through Minas Gerais, eaten fresh or pulped into juices and the cremoso ice cream sold at every corner padaria.
Mango season carries a heavy cultural weight in the Northeast — Recife's manguebeat music scene of the 1990s took its name and imagery from the mangrove-meets-mango landscape of Pernambuco. Today Brazil's combination of irrigated industrial production and dense informal urban tree cover means few other countries see as much fruit fall on as many sidewalks.