As the name suggests, green fields stretch in every direction here in Campoverde. But where grapes once dominated, the landscape now has a new king: kiwi.
Somewhat improbably, Italy has grown to become the world’s largest producer of the odd furry fruit, according to the National Institute of Agricultural Economics, surpassing even New Zealand, which coined the name for the fruit once known as the Chinese gooseberry.
You don’t think “kiwi” when you think Italy. Two of the letters that spell the word don’t even exist in the Italian alphabet.
Nevertheless, kiwi cultivation is booming, with annual production at more than 400,000 tonnes, earning millions of dollars for farmers and reviving the economy in sections of Italy that people otherwise might have abandoned for the city.
A kiwi plant, it turns out, adapts fairly easily to the infrastructure used for grapes.
From a distance you might not even spot the difference, except that the leaves of the kiwi plant are rounder, fuller and a deeper shade of green.
In Italy’s central Latina province, where farms replaced swampland drained during the Mussolini era, Gianni Cosmi has been converting his family farm to kiwi.
He still dedicates about 50 acres to grapes, but 35 acres are now planted with kiwi. Sure, he agreed, it is a shift in identity.
But it is a profitable one. “With grapes and wine, there is history,” Cosmi said. “With the kiwi, there is adventure.”
About 80 per cent of Italy’s kiwi production is exported, the bulk to Europe and 15 per cent going to the United States.
Italy sends kiwis at roughly the opposite end of the calendar as other big producers such as New Zealand, providing the US a virtual year-round supply.
Even though kiwis need a lot more water than grapes, the green, tart fruit can earn three times the profit that grapes bring in, Cosmi said.
It requires a bit more manual labour, as well. Workers inspect the round pre-fruit pods for the perfect shape. Those that are judged lopsided are picked and tossed.
The fruit thrives in central Italy because of the climate, with its relatively mild winters and warm-but-not-scorching summers, and because of the soil, mineral-rich from the area’s many volcanoes.
It is naturally organic, said Cosmi, 47, a former mayor of nearby Aprilia — no need for pesticides and only a little fertiliser.
Italian kiwi took root in Latina, and Renato Campoli was its pioneer.
Thirty years ago, as a young man, Campoli was one of the first Italians to plant the fruit, almost on a lark. “I was looking for something new to do in agriculture,” Campoli said.
A friend in Sweden had come across a mysterious fruit called a kiwi, and he challenged Campoli: Plant that!
“I didn’t know a thing about it, not how to cultivate it, water it, prune it,” Campoli, 57, recalled with a laugh. That first year, he was ready to give up.
He was on the verge of destroying several hundred boxes of kiwi that he had grown because he couldn’t find a buyer.
Finally, an organic cooperative near Lake Bolsena agreed to take the fruit.
Slowly, Campoli built what he assumed would be a niche market. But over time, business took off as the fruit’s popularity grew and Italy positioned itself to fill in the southern hemisphere’s production gaps.
Campoli’s life was transformed. His 5-acre farm is today a 50-acre spread. His son, who assuredly would have run off to the city in search of work, is instead getting an environmental-engineering degree and will come home to run the business.
Italians are learning to love kiwi, sort of. More kiwi is eaten in Italy than anywhere else in Europe.
Its price has come down and these days costs only a few cents more than apples or bananas.
But where it is grown, kiwi still hasn’t permeated the culture. There are no gigantic kiwi statues at local gas stations. There are no kiwi festivals.
You can order and be served a kiwi at the Campoverde coffee bar, but the barman might not cut it right.
Cosmi, the former mayor and proud kiwi grower, hopes this will change. He is also president of the Latina Kiwi Consortium, an umbrella grouping of the province’s farmers.
The consortium’s logo is a kiwi cut in half and plopped inside an image of the ancient Roman Colosseum.
Italian kiwi farmers, who have a trade magazine and biannual conventions, plan to launch a publicity campaign with radio and TV spots, hoardings and other promotions, Cosmi said.
They will extol the fruit’s nutritional virtues, as well as its environmentally friendly cultivation, in an effort to expand both consumption and the market.
“Come back in ten years,” Cosmi said, gesturing towards the green-checkered horizon, “and it will all be kiwi.”
