garlic

" Garlic, Allium sativum, is a bulbous plant closely related to the onion. Garlic is produced commercially for its composite bulb, which consists of several individual bulblets, known as ""cloves"". With 13 billion pounds annually, China is the leading producer, accounting for 66 percent of world output. The majority comes from the Shandong Province. China represented approximately 80 percent of the world garlic export market. China’s capacity to produce garlic continues to increase each year and the 2004 production level represented a 60-percent increase over the 2000 production level. On the United States wholesale market, for example, Chinese garlic costs almost half the price of garlic that is grown in USA. In 1994, the United States imported 13 million pounds of fresh garlic and 17 million pounds (46 million pounds farm weight equivalent) of dried garlic from China. And China is now the source for 73 percent of fresh market garlic sold in the United States."