The green kiwifruit is delicious and popular around the world, but you may not know that it originates from China. In 1904, seeds of kiwifruit were brought from Yichang in Hubei, China to New Zealand by Mary Isabel Fraser, the principal of Wanganui Girls’ College. Later, they were cultivated by Alexander, a well-known local horticulturalist, and the first kiwi tree in New Zealand grew up. Its skin was brown and hairy like that of the kiwi bird, New Zealand’s national bird, from which it got its name.

In Guizhou, the kiwifruit of Xiuwen, Guiyang, is widely known. Xiuwen County is the third largest producing area of kiwifruit in China. As the Agreement between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the European Union on Cooperation on, and Protection of Geographical Indications came into effect, the Xiuwen kiwifruit has been included in the list of products with mutual recognition of geographical indications between China and Europe, and each kiwifruit can be traced through its QR code. It has met the EU export standards and has been exported to Russia, Japan and Southeast Asia.

Xiuwen County has been growing kiwifruit since the late 1980s, and gone through the start-up period (1988-1995), the development period (1996-2015) and the fast-growing period (2016 till now), after which the kiwifruit industry has become its characteristic industry. In recent years, Xiuwen County has introduced the big data system into kiwifruit cultivation, making the entire cultivation process traceable. Consumers are able to know all the information about the kiwifruit they bought, and food safety is ensured.

Xiuwen County has also introduced a “Research Institute on Kiwifruit in Guizhou” and “the Guizhou Center of the China-New Zealand Joint Laboratory for Kiwifruit Research” to promote the high-quality development of kiwifruit industry. Currently, the institute has built a 200 mu (one mu is equal to 0.16 acres) research base in Dashi Township, which helps actively introduce new varieties of kiwifruit from other areas and select superior seeds in Xiuwen to refine the excellent variety. At the same time, the research center cooperated with the Sichuan Provincial Academy of Natural Resources Science to promote the industry by introducing new varieties, developing new technologies, and increasing variety reserves.

Official figures show that, in 2021, kiwifruit planting area in Xiuwen County is 167,000 mu and fruiting area is 125,000 mu, covering 108 villages in six towns, one township and five streets, with an expected fresh fruit output of more than 70,000 tons and a gross output value of 2.5 billion yuan.

The kiwifruit industry has become a cash cow for local villagers. They returned to their hometowns to learn cultivation techniques and contract orchards, so that they gradually get rich. Meanwhile, Xiuwen’s kiwifruit has gone from scattered planting to large-scale and standardized planting, from self-production and self-marketing to “planting and acquisition under contract”. Now, they are sold on e-commerce platforms. Their self-developed kiwifruit juice, preserved fruit and crisp flakes are popular in the market, and their newly developed health foods such as selenium-rich tablets, seed oil, flavored water, lactobacillus kiwifruit drinks and kiwifruit cookies make it competitive in the market in various ways.