<p>California's pistachio growers have made a bullish bet on the future: They've planted so many trees over the past few years that the state's production is expected to more than double, hitting in excess of a billion pounds by 2020.The ramped-up production has little to do with any rebound in the U.S. economy. It's a gamble that, half a world away, Chinese consumers' voracious appetite for pistachios will continue to grow.</p> <p>"We have a great market in China," said Judy Hirigoyen, director of global marketing for American Pistachio Growers. "We could literally sell our entire crop to just China."Bolstering that confidence is a belief that China's urban middle class, which has seen its spending power more than double over the past decade, will continue to expand. But it's also been buoyed by geopolitical events. The other two major pistachio-exporting countries, Iran and Syria, have been roiled by sanctions and civil war. California growers swooped in to pick up the slack just as Chinese consumption was beginning to take off.</p> <p>U.S. pistachio exports to China now exceed 80 million pounds, up from just 1 million a decade ago. And even with the increased production, demand is outpacing supply, pushing prices on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to an all-time high.Growers have watched their fortunes rise as well. Total crop values are now over $1 billion, a fivefold increase from when growers first began their aggressive ramp-up of production in 1997, according to the Administrative Committee on Pistachios.</p> <p>However, pistachio farmers have planted so many trees lately that the exports must now continue to skyrocket in order to find a market for all their crops. In 2001, there were 100,000 acres of pistachio trees in California. Now, there are more than 240,000. Because a tree takes seven years before it bears fruit, many of those acres have not come on line yet.The massive growth in exports to China didn't happen by accident. It was part of a concerted effort by growers to cultivate new consumers.In 2011, the American Pistachio Growers launched a road show in China. They drafted Miss California and the U.S. water polo team as spokespeople and staged a local media blitz, in-store appearances and nutritional seminars across the country. The nuts were pitched as part of a healthy diet that improves skin and hair."They ate it up," recalls Noelle Freeman, Miss California 2011. Pistachios and Miss California were briefly a trending topic on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.</p> <p> </p>