South Africa has made the world’s top 20 fruit-producing countries list with its 7.5 million tonnes of fruit produced annually.
Citrus Growers Association CEO Justin Chadwick highlighted the latest data on world fruit production in his weekly newsletter on Friday.
He says: “Although India (1.428 billion people) recently overtook China (1.425 billion people) as the world’s most populous country, China is still the number one fruit producer at 243 million tonnes with India second at 106 million tonnes.
“What makes China interesting is despite producing more than twice the fruit of any other country, they also import significant volumes from across the globe.”
There are five countries in Asia in the top twenty: Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Pakistan.
Other African countries in the top 20 are Egypt (12th) with 14.7 million tonnes and Nigeria (13th) with 11..5 million tonnes.
Europe weighs in with Spain (8th) producing 19.5 million tonnes, followed by Italy (10th) with 17.8 million tonnes and France (18th) with 8.9 million tonnes.
Brazil is third, producing 39.8 million tonnes, while Columbia (15th) and Ecuador (19th) respectively produced 10.5 and 7.7 million tonnes respectively.
Mexico and USA dominate in North America – fifth and sixth respectively – with 238 million and 237 million tonnes produced.
In the Middle East Turkey is the number one fruit producer and number four on the global list with production of 24.2 million tonnes, while Iran (9th) produces 19 million tonnes.
