China’s Yunnan Avocado Production Makes Gains

Recently, years after gaining popularity in Europe and the United States, avocados have begun to gain receptiveness in China. KFC recent promotion of a chicken burger with avocados in the Chinese market highlights this point. The green fruit from Latin America is set to become a new favorite among China's middle-class consumers. Presently, China's supply of avocados is almost completely dependent on imports. Even so, in 2011, China’s avocado imports only amounted to 318 thousand kilograms (kg). By 2016, avocado imports reached 25 million kg. Expansion of China's avocado market has also led to growth in China’s domestic avocado planting industry.

In fact, in 1964, the avocado tree was introduced into Yuanjiang County, Yunnanf or its oil properties—currently, there are about 1,000 avocado trees there. But after 2010, avocados trees were grown in large numbers for its fruit. In 2011, Pu 'er Green Silver Biological Co Ltd. introduced avocado cultivation technology from Israel and began to plant the first avocados in Menglian County, Yunnan.

The company has begun its first commercial harvest, this September, after seven years of efforts. "Avocados are a geographical crop and require a long time of trial and error to find the best place to grow. At the same time, avocados are characterized by a year of high yield and a year of low yield. To solve this problem, honeybee pollination is needed to ensure a good harvest. The biggest difficulty for avocados is patience, and after seven years of hard work, success has finally been achieved.” said by Qi Jiazhu, general manager of Pu 'er Green Silver Biological. Currently, domestic avocados from Yunnan are available for sale on e-commerce websites such as Taobao.

Currently, Pu 'er Green Silver Biological has grown more than 1235.5 acres of avocado in Menglian County—the largest avocado cultivation base in China. A plan was set to expand avocado plantation areas by8300acresfrom 2015 to2020. Presently, the company's core demonstrative avocado plantation is 1650acres and farmers' professional cooperative plantation is 6580acres.Concurrent with the expansion of planting, Pu 'er Green Silver Biological will also build an avocado breeding center, a raw material processing plant, a demonstrative cultivation technology garden, a national avocado planting bank and a national avocado industry engineering technology center.

Yunnan avocado planting projects are also favored by other companies and the government as well. In the first half of this year, Charoen Pokphand Group organized an Israeli expert, accompanied by the Agriculture Department of Yunnan Province, to make a trip to Lincang and Pu 'er City—two cities suitable for avocado plantations. Charoen Pokphand Group and Yunnan provincial government believe that many areas of Yunnan have natural conditions appropriate for growing avocados along with unique advantages over adjacent markets in South Asia and Southeast Asia. it is highly feasible to develop the avocado industry. The two sides agreed to determine the location of the project as soon as possible, and make the avocado industry a highlight industry with competitive advantages in China