Kiwifruit industry in New Zealand

Kiwifruit or kiwi is a major horticultural export earner for New Zealand. New Zealand developed the first commercially viable kiwifruit and developed export markets, creating the demand for the fruit that exists today. Today New Zealand is the second largest kiwifruit producing country, next to China and Italy, and holds an approximate 30% market share. In the 2008–2009 season the value of New Zealand kiwifruit exports was NZ$1.45 billion.

Origin of the fruit

Kiwifruit originates from mountainous areas of central China, including the modern provinces of Hunan and Hubei. While there is currently no evidence of kiwifruit being cultivated as a traditional crop in China, even in the early 20th century, rural communities in these areas would traditionally collect wild fruit from the Actinidia genus to sell at markets.

Cultivation of the fuzzy kiwifruit spread from China in the early 20th century, when seeds of Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa were introduced to New Zealand by Mary Isabel Fraser, the principal of Whanganui Girls' College who brought back seeds to New Zealand after visiting her sister, a missionary teacher who lived in Yichang, Hubei Province, China, in 1903. The fruit had been popularised among the Western communities living in Yichang by British plant collector Ernest Henry Wilson, and the seeds which Fraser brought back likely came from plants collected by Wilson from Sichuan. While kiwifruit seeds were also introduced to the United States and Europe during the same time period, only seeds from New Zealand developed into commercial varieties.