Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture has authorized a shipment of pears that were bred domestically to the UK for the first time. The ministry said it chose to ship the “Baodao Ganlu Jumbo Pear”, because it is sufficiently hardy to last the one-month storage period aboard ships bound for Europe.
According to Ministry officials, in recent weeks they had also sold pomelos to the UK, followed by the shipment of 3.53 tons of jumbo pears, and they expect more progress in opening up new markets overseas for the nation’s fruits and other agricultural products.
The pear is considered a “Taiwanese native cultivar,” developed by Liu Shen-chuan, a fruit grower in his 70s with a farm in the mountains of Miaoli County’s Jhuolan Township. The pear has shown resistance to various diseases and infections, thereby reducing the amount of pesticide required, ministry officials said.
There are 4,946 hectares dedicated to growing the pear, mainly in hills and mountains of Jhuolan Township and Taichung’s Dongshih District and annual production has reached about 100,000 tons.
Source: taipeitimes.com
