South Africa is among the world’s top fruit exporters
“South Africa has made the world’s top 20 fruit-producing countries list with its 7.5 million tons of fruit produced annually. Citrus Growers Association CEO Justin Chadwick highlighted the latest data on world fruit production in his weekly newsletter: “Although India recently overtook China as the world’s most populous country, China is still the number one fruit producer at 243 million tons with India second at 106 million tons. 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 tons and Nigeria (13th) with 11..5 million tons. Europe weighs in with Spain (8th) producing 19.5 million tons, followed by Italy (10th) with 17.8 million tons and France (18th) with 8.9 million tons.
Brazil is third, producing 39.8 million tons, while Columbia (15th) and Ecuador (19th) respectively produced 10.5 and 7.7 million tons respectively. Mexico and USA dominate in North America – fifth and sixth respectively – with 238 million and 237 million tons produced.”
*This article is excerpted from freshplaza.com website, published September 12, 2023