Kiwi fruit, Chinese gooseberry, Actinidia deliciosa

Kiwi is a native of Southern China, where it was collected from the wild till somebody decided to get serious about 100-120 years ago. Until 1976 New Zealand was the only producer, in 1977 France started to sell it it too. In 1980 USA, Greece and Australia joined them and latest competitors,  Tunisia and Bulgaria started to sell this  fruit in 2003. Now it is grown commercially in 22 countries and this number will grow as demand is there and kiwi can be grown pretty much anywhere (well, almost).
Biggest producer of kiwis is Italy with 436 300 t in 2009. Kiwi helped to revive quite a few of stagnating  Italian regions.  Central Italy appeared to be perfect for kiwis. First grower's name  was  Campoli, he started planting kiwis challenged by his Swedish friend. He never tried a kiwi before, and could not find any buyer for his first crop  of kiwis anywhere. Fortunately  over the years his innovation paid itself off. Now Italians eat 7  times more kiwis than Americans (on per capita basis).

Biggest producer per capita is New Zealand  with over 83 kg produced in 2008. That's 5-6 kiwis a day for each New Zealander. Globally,  1 285 553 tonnes were  produced in 2009, so there were 187 grams of kiwi available for a potential consumer (that's about 5 small kiwis).
Crop of kiwis of 2009 could provide  1 075 000 people with 2000 calories a day, or entire populations of Djibouti and Barbados. Its protein content could provide 810 000 people with 50g a day.
Best crop ever was collected in 2008, 1 313 827 tonnes. In fact 2009 was a first year in history when kiwi production did not grow.
85 893 hectares (0.055% of all permanent crop land in the world )were used worldwide for kiwi production in 2009,a territory similar in size to Singapore and British Virgin Islands,  a surprisingly low number for a fruit that is sold in every grocery store.

By the way Turkey is planting kiwis as crazy (20 000 hectares in 2009, second to only Italy) and soon will be a major producer, unless they haven't done their homework of course, which i doubt.

Kiwi has very generous yields, average worldwide was 14951.2 kg/ha in 2009. Best average yield  ever was 17870.4 in 2004. Record yield belongs to guess who-- Canada  with 28750kg/ha  (2000). That's about 720 000 kiwis that are sold for 50 cents each in USA. Per Hectare! Wow. Don't forget to send me a few cases of kiwis if this will inspire you to grow the stuff.

Retail value of all kiwis of 2009 would be over $16 billion at 50 cents a piece.



List of all articles at Ironrye:
 http://ironrye.blogspot.com/2011/10/list-of-all-articles-at-iron-rye.html

Production, by country,               

	item	2007		2008		2009
Australia	Kiwi fruit	5350		5350	F	4478
Bulgaria	Kiwi fruit	100		0		106
Canada	Kiwi fruit	80		50			M
Chile	Kiwi fruit	170000		170000			M
Cyprus	Kiwi fruit	158		151		160
France	Kiwi fruit	70156		65670		70000	F
Germany	Kiwi fruit				M		M
Greece	Kiwi fruit	70100		84300		84000	F
Iran (Islamic Republic of)	Kiwi fruit	30000		30000			M
Israel	Kiwi fruit	3703		4241		4099
Italy	Kiwi fruit	416997		473955		436300
Japan	Kiwi fruit	32800		38400		36000	F
Kyrgyzstan	Kiwi fruit	400	*	400	*	400	*
New Zealand	Kiwi fruit	365000		365000	F		M
Portugal	Kiwi fruit	12259		10998		12777
Republic of Korea	Kiwi fruit	10500		10500			M
Slovenia	Kiwi fruit	173		150		252
Spain	Kiwi fruit	14036		14036	F		M
Switzerland	Kiwi fruit	313		206		548
Tunisia	Kiwi fruit	25		25			M
Turkey	Kiwi fruit	15242		19530		23689
United States of America	Kiwi fruit	22226		20865		23133
World + (Total)	Kiwi fruit	1239618	A	1313827	A	1285553

My usual sources  are : FAO.org, usda.gov, cia.gov, alibaba.com, many others

Thank you for your visit. And eat kiwis!