Pistachio a sudden 50% loss in the Australian pistachio harvest. Several years of severe drought in Iran around 2008 to 2015 caused significant declines in production. In 2016, world production of pistachios was 1.1 million tonnes, with the United States and Iran as leading producers, together accounting for 68% of the total (table). Secondary producers were Turkey and China. The kernels are often eaten whole, either fresh or roasted and salted, and are also used in pistachio ice cream, kulfi, spumoni, historically in Neapolitan ice cream, pistachio butter, pistachio paste and confections such as baklava, pistachio chocolate, pistachio halva, pistachio lokum
Pistachio Israel's Hula Valley, dated to 780,000 years ago. More recently, the pistachio has been cultivated commercially in parts of the English-speaking world, such as Australia along with New Mexico and California in the United States, where it was introduced in 1854 as a garden tree. David Fairchild of the United States Department of Agriculture introduced hardier cultivars collected in China to California in 1904 and 1905, but it was not promoted as a commercial crop until 1929. Walter T. Swingle’s pistachios from Syria had already fruited well at Niles, California, by 1917. Pistachio is a desert plant and is highly