Only weeks after Florida Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford's historic delivery of the first commercial shipment of Florida citrus to mainland China, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is helping Florida growers prepare to venture into this newly tapped, complex foreign market. An exporting seminar held June 28 in Vero Beach drew a capacity crowd of Florida agricultural producers eager to learn how to capitalize on this huge new exporting opportunity. Held at Disney's Vero Beach Resort, the daylong seminar featured presentations by marketing representatives from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the Florida Department of Citrus, and Chinese distributors, and covered topics such as culture and demographics, packaging and shipping requirements, phytosanitary certification, consumer preferences, trends and distribution channels.
China is the fourth-largest land mass in the world, behind Russia, Canada and the United States.
Because much of the land is geographically unsuitable to farm, only 7 percent of the entire land mass can be utilized to feed what is equal to roughly one-fourth of the world's population, or 1.29 billion people. China's growth rate cannot be supported by its proportionately small percentage of farm land. Scarce agricultural land is further threatened due to increasing modernization needs for industry and business construction. This alone, identifies China as a foremost target for global agricultural trading. It is now just a question of who will supply the Chinese consumers.