Kiwano Melon Finds a Home in Huilong: Farmers Introduce an African Specialty Fruit

On September 16, in an ordinary melon shed in Huzhou Village, Huilong Township, strange-looking fruits with hard, bumpy skins hung all over the trellises. Villagers were busy picking them and packing them into boxes ready for shipment elsewhere.

"This is a fruit introduced from the African desert, called kiwano melon," said grower Xu Jinjing with a smile, seeing the author's puzzlement. The kiwano melon, also known as the horned melon, originates from the Kalahari Desert in Africa. It has a yellow skin with spines, and inside is a green fruit. The flesh is fine-textured and full of seeds, and its flavor resembles a mix of banana, cucumber and lemon; after eating it, a faint fragrance lingers in the mouth. It is currently a rising star among fruits in big cities and is much loved by young people. "Right now the ones we pick are fairly green; after being kept at home for a while, they turn yellow. On the market, one currently sells for around three or four yuan."

Xu Jinjing used to work in Zhejiang. Seeing kiwano melons selling briskly in the market at high prices, he got the idea of growing them. Through a friend's introduction, he learned cultivation techniques and bought seedlings. In 2013, he returned to the village and began trial planting, and that very year the yield reached more than 30,000 yuan per mu. After this initial success, under his influence and leadership, in 2014 more than 20 households in the village began growing kiwano melons, with a planted area of more than 50 mu. The average yield reached five or six thousand fruits per mu; calculated at a purchase price of 2 yuan each, that is more than 10,000 yuan per mu.

Xu Jinjing said that the introduction and cultivation of the kiwano melon also broke the taboo that the mountainous areas of northern Fujian could not grow tropical African fruits, opening up a new path for farmers in northern Fujian to get rich.