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Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) was domesticated as a fruit crop by the first Amazonians in traditional Neotropical agroforestry systems, but research and development (R&D) to date has not transformed its fruit into a modern success story. The fruit is really a tree ‘potato,’ competing with traditional starches rather than with succulent fruits. R&D efforts have focused more on production than on product transformation, commercialization and the consumer, thus failing to fill gaps in the production-to-consumption chain. Consumer demands are only now getting more consideration, and clear identification of the smallholder farmer as the R&D client is not yet generalized. Too many, often large germplasm collections have biased R&D programs away from smallholder farmers and did not pursue the quality and uniformity that consumers want. The general lessons learnt from 25 years of R&D efforts on peach palm …