Dan Siekman

Over the next decade there will be, “strong growth opportunities in high value fruit and vegetable crops provide opportunities for smallholders” in the region, amidst rising demand from export markets and shifting consumption within the region away from staples and toward meat, fruits and vegetables.

The first shipment to China from this year’s Turkish cherry season was reportedly sent out from the city of Afyonkarahisar in western Turkey’s Afyon province on June 27. With recent news that Turkish cherries exported to China will no longer be required to undergo cold treatment, and US-China trade tensions reducing volumes and raising prices of US cherries in China, representatives from the fruit industry and government in Turkey have high expectations for the development of the China market in this and coming seasons.

The Sun Valley Rice Company, LLC, a member of the LaGrande Family Foods Group located in California’s Sacramento Valley, has become the first US rice company to finalize a contract to sell rice to China.

The popularity and success in major Chinese cities of this season’s apricots from northwestern China’s Xinjiang region demonstrates the increasing viability in China of domestic air freight as a means of getting fresh fruit to market.