How the kiwi fruit from China, rebranded by New Zealand, flourishes in Italy, now world’s No 2 producer
- Decades ago farmers south of Rome began ripping out grape vines and replacing them with kiwi fruit vines; today harvests in Italy outstrip those in New Zealand
- Rising temperatures have allowed Italian farmers to grow other exotic fruit – avocados, bananas, papaya, mangoes, dragon fruit, guava, even coffee and cocoa
Most people assume the kiwi fruit comes from New Zealand because of its name – which it shares with the country’s flightless bird and is also a nickname for its citizens.
The misunderstanding undoubtedly derives from the fact that the country developed the first commercially viable kiwi for export and today is the world’s third-largest producer of the fruit.
Yet the kiwi, also known as the Chinese gooseberry, is actually native to China, which is the world’s largest producer of the popular fruit. Italy, strangely enough, is the world’s second-largest producer, eclipsing even New Zealand.
The vitamin-rich, bittersweet, juicy green kiwi fruit is a favourite of agronomist and researcher Ottavio Cacioppo, who introduced the first kiwi fruit plants to Italy in 1971 when he was looking for alternative crops suitable for rejuvenating the rural economy of the country’s poorer south.
“At first glance it is not a beautiful fruit, but once split open it’s delicious, precious and highly nutritious,” Cacioppo says. “I fell in love with it at first sight.”
Kiwi fruit vines are flourishing in a former marshland now called the Pontine Plains, midway between Rome and Naples. For centuries, the marshes were a malaria-infested wasteland.
