Grower and operational characteristics of US passion fruit farmers

Figures (4) Tables (8)

Figure 1.
Point of sale for passion fruit grown in the US ranked in order of greatest to least by percentage of the total sales market.
Figure 2.
New markets are being considered for passion fruit sales by US producers.
Figure 3.
Participation in additional agricultural activities by US passion fruit producers.
Figure 4.
Other crops are grown by passion fruit producers on their farms.
Region Farms (No.) Proportion (%)

Florida 21 47.7
California 6 13.6
Puerto Rico 13 29.6
Others 4 9.1
Total 44 100.0

Table 1.
Distribution of passion fruit farms by region and state based on a national survey conducted in 2022.

Region	Total farm acres^ns		Acres available for expansion^ns
Region	Mean	Std. Dev.	Mean	Std. Dev.
Florida	159.5	473.3	9.3	21.8
California	78.0	108.5	3.5	5.2
Puerto Rico	25.4	39.7	3.7	4.5
Others	41.1	55.9	10.1	7.9
Total	98.0	331.7	6.9	15.6
ns – not statistically significant (α = 0.05).

Table 2.

Total farm acres and acres available for expansion.

Region	Acres devoted to passion fruit in 2019^ns		Acres devoted to passion fruit in 2020^ns
Region	Mean	Std. Dev.	Mean	Std. Dev.
Florida	2.9	6.6	3.7	10.0
California	0.3	0.4	0.6	0.9
Puerto Rico	0.7	0.8	0.8	0.9
Others	0.5	0.0	0.5	0.0
Total	1.7	4.7	2.1	6.9
ns – not statistically significant (α = 0.05).

Table 3.

New acres dedicated to passion fruit in 2019 and 2020.

Region	The average price received per box or flat in 2021(${\$} $/lb)^ns
Region	Mean	Std. Dev.
Florida	3.97	2.69
California	2.50	0.0
Puerto Rico	2.48	1.59
Others	−	−
Total	3.08	2.03
ns – not statistically significant (α = 0.05).

Table 4.

Average price received by grower per box or flat of passion fruit produced in the 2021 growing season across several US locations.

Region	Percent of harvested passion fruit sold as fresh^ns		Percent of farms that produced value-added products^*
Region	Mean	Std. Dev.	Percent of farms that produced value-added products^*
Florida	87.5	18.9	44.4
California	73.8	11.1	16.7
Puerto Rico	82.5	13.7	83.3
Others	90.0	0.0	50.0
Total	82.9	13.6	52.5
* – statistically significant at 0.05.

Table 5.

Percent of harvested passion fruit sold as fresh and percent of farms that produced value-added products.

Independent variable	Coefficient	Robust standard error
Region
California***	9093.805	1719.473
Puerto Rico*	5814.651	3015.328
Fruit-bearing acres in 2021**	503.081	135.941
Constant	−622.038	574.196
Number of observations	23
Probability (3,19)	0.000
R-squared	0.391
* - significant at 0.01, - significant at 0.025, * - significant at 0.10.

Table 8.

Regression results with the yield per farm in 2021 (in pounds per acre) as the dependent variable.

Region	Mean^ns	Std. Dev.	Frequency
Florida	55.2	15.3	12
California	55.0	15.3	6
Puerto Rico	50.2	12.2	13
Others	53.5	22.0	2
Total	53.2	13.9	33
ns – not statistically significant (α = 0.05).