Cloves, Syzygium aromaticum , Eugenia aromaticum

Cloves are unopened  floral buds of a tropical tree Syzygium aromaticum, native of  Moluccas. Cloves had been an important commodity since at the very least 400 BC. Up to 18th century, you could find some places that would give you  1 kg of gold for 1 kg of cloves. Now, it costs about $2000-5000 per metric ton.
11 countries are producing cloves commercially, and the world crop of 2009 was  116 739 tonnes. That's about 17.1 grams of cloves per year per potential consumer.  That is about 200 individual cloves. Usually  it takes anywhere  from  9 to 15 million  individual  cloves  to come up with 1 metric ton.
 Biggest producer and consumer of cloves is Indonesia, which is producing over 70% of world's cloves. Smoking cloves is a  very popular habit in Indonesia. Biggest producer per capita is Comoros islands, (over 5 kg of cloves). Comoros dedicated over 5.8% of their territory to clove production  ( 25% of all permanent crop land).
Biggest concentration of the trees you will find on Pemba, a  big Tanzanian island . Almost 3 500 000 clove trees are grown there, on 984 sq km.  Somehow they find room for 385 000 local residents as well. A glass of bottled water will get  some clove under taste and smell within a few minutes on that island. A lot of Eugenol, the main aromatic clove oil, is in the air.              

Over 384 950 hectares ( note- Brazilian acreage wasn't included here) were used  for clove production in 2009, a territory similar in size to South Georgia and South Sandwich islands combined. That is over  0.248% of all permanent crop land in the world.

The calorie content of 2009's crop is big enough to provide 480 500 people with 2000 calories a day. Protein content would be big enough to provide 50g a day to 366 000 people.
Best crop ever of cloves was in 2003, (153 048 t), worst, since 1961-- 19 090 tonnes in 1962.
Best worldwide yields since 1961 were in 1967, 402 kg/ha. Worst were in 1989 ( 147.6 kg/ha). Record yield belongs to China 1166.6 kg/ha in 2004. China started to produce its first cloves in 1986.
Note as of  25/05/ 2011 -->  crop of cloves in Indonesia is expected to fall dramatically this year  to 25 000 tonnes vs the usual 85 000.Prices for cloves in Indonesia are reaching $5500 per ton and local consumers are starting to buy cloves from Brazil and other major exporters.
Update March 2012-- Brazil  and most others are sold out; prices  are around $15-20 000 per ton. Interesting times ahead.

World crop is over $ 400 million worth.

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


Production by country,            2007                     2008            2009
 Brazil                                    Cloves 5000         6000            6500         (2010--6000 t )

China

Cloves

800

F

825

F

900

F

Comoros

Cloves

3500

*

3500

F

M

Grenada

Cloves

20

F

20

F

M

Indonesia

Cloves

80404

80929

M

Kenya

Cloves

1000

F

1000

F

M

Madagascar

Cloves

10000

F

10000

F

M

Malaysia

Cloves

200

F

200

F

M

Mexico

Cloves

M

M

M

Sri Lanka

Cloves

3070

3990

3790

United Republic of Tanzania

Cloves

9900

F

9900

F

M

World + (Total)

Cloves

113894

A

116364

A

116739

My main sources are FAO.org, USDA.gov, CIA.gov, alibaba.com and many others. . Thank you for your visit!