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Fruit Orchards Market Size - Global
Based on data from FAO, there are an estimated 2.2 million fruit tree orchards in the world, with a collective 37 billion fruit trees. This is based on a total 53 million hectares of fruit tree production globally, with an average orchard size of 24 hectares. You'll find all the details of my methodology and calculations below.
calculations
There is no readily available data on the number of fruit orchards or fruit trees from public, recent and high-quality sources. So, to triangulate an estimate for these figures, I started with data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on the harvested area for different varieties of fruit trees globally:
In total, there are 53 million hectares of fruit tree production globally. Based on this report from the USDA, we know that a fruit and nut tree farm in the U.S. has, on average, 60 harvested acres (5,641,474 bearing acres divided by 93,020 total farms = 60 acres/farm). That converts to 24.3 hectares. So, if we assume that the average productive area per farm is roughly the same globally as it is in the U.S., we can estimate the number of orchards globally:
To determine the total number of fruit trees in production globally, I first had to calculate the number of trees for each variety of fruit, since the trees/hectare ratio varies notably for different fruit varieties. For each fruit variety, I found an estimate for the number of trees per hectare. For similar varieties, such as peaches, plums and nectarines, I assumed the same number of trees per hectare. In addition, if the source provided the number of trees per acre, I converted this data to hectares based on the assumption that 1 acre is 40% of a hectare. The data on hectares of production is the same as above, from the FAO.
If we add all of these together, we reach a total of 37.8 billion fruit trees globally.
conclusion
To wrap up, there are an estimated 2.2 million fruit tree orchards globally, with an estimated 37.8 billion fruit trees.