The Chinese Fruit Market Part 2

The Chinese Fruit Market Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Today we talk more with Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington Apple Commission on what the apple market is like in China. One of the big issues for China is that they are removing acres of orchards in favor of urban development and those orchards are being moved further inland.

FRYHOVER: Number one on that of course is the distance. When you are in Shandong you are right next to Yantai which is close to the port cities. As you move further away it’s a thousand miles to Shanghai or 750 to Beijing. So that’s going to being lots of infrastructure issues. Roads, trucks, refrigeration for those trucks moving that product inland towards those ports.

Another issue according to Fryhover is water and that availability of water.

FRYHOVER: As we all have heard China has 11% arable land. They’re not making anymore. Water is more and more of a problem as far as growing more fruits. And probably one of the major issues that the farmers are really facing right now is the young people are moving to the urban areas.

Many of those young people are moving to the larger cities like Beijing or Shanghai. And subsequently the farmers are getting older.

FRYHOVER: We talked earlier about the age discrimination here in our industry and how we are growing older as farmers, they’re seeing the same thing in China.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.