Avocado in salad, avocado on toast, avocado with sesame and honey — all mouth-watering options! The healthy-fat superfood has long found its way on mainstream tables and become a mainstay on the menu of your favorite foodie joint.
In 2010, Germany imported 28.000 tons of avocados; by 2015, the amount had jumped up to 45.000 tons. Yet, what could possibly be wrong with the beloved fruit? The following seven facts spell out the strain the ever-intensifying avocado craze puts on the environment.
Problem 1: Transportation
Surprise, surprise, the miracle doesn’t grow in your European backyard. Rather, it’s cultivated 10.000 kilometers away in Peru, 9.000 km away in South-Africa, or, if you’re lucky, “just” a couple of thousand kilometers away in Spain. Avocado is now available all year and all the way up to the arctic ocean. In the winter it journeys from Brazil, Chile, and Spain, in the summer from South-Africa and Peru. Avocados today are as self-evident as a sack of potatoes.
Problem 2: Acreage
Due to the green fruit’s high profit margin and the lack of available acreage there has been an increase in illegal deforestation to plant avocado trees. Every year 4.000 hectares of conifers are lost, says Jaime Navia Antezana from the agricultural and environmental organization GIRA to the German newspaper Taz.
Problem 3: Cooling
The average journey time for a crate of avocados from the southern hemisphere to cold central Europe is 20 to 30 days; during this time the fruit has to be kept constantly cool in order to interrupt the ripening process. Avocado is shipped at 6 degrees Celsius in humidity controlled containers to large ports, then transported further in lorries to distributers or the final seller.
Problem 4: Water Use
A thousand liters of water flow into an average kilo of avocado — an enormous amount. A kilo is only two or three fruits. At the other end of the world, this fact transforms vast tracts of land. Is the world really a better place if you exchange German butter for a mountain of avocados?
Problem 5: Time
Cultivating avocados is tricky — extremely tricky. First, the roots are grown in a dark space, where one of the gardeners receives the glorious task of fumbling along with a flashlight and picking out the seedlings ready for the next step. The second-stage scions are then fed hormones and grafted on another tree, such as the apple, to maintain yield predictability.
The whole rigmarole oftentimes only pays off for the biggest of plantations with the most cropland and yet more personnel to manage the complexity of tasks from root formation till packaging and shipping.
Problem 6: Organic is not necessarily better
Organic avocados are often just as bad for the ecosystem; they also need a lot of water, and to be packed, cooled and shipped across the ocean.
Problem 7: It’s High-Maintenance
Due to their odor-sensitivity avocados can under no circumstances be seated next to any odor-emitting products. Avocados tolerate neither dirt nor fats or oils — the holds and cargo-areas must, in other words, be kept absolutely spotless. Moreover, any manner of bumping or nudging makes all the difference to the aristocrat among fruits, and that’s why it only travels well-cushioned. Though protecting the fruit, the packaging puts a further dent in its environmental balance.
In comparison: 1kg of avocados needs 1000 litres of water, whereas 1kg of tomatoes requires approximately 180 litres of water and 1kg of lettuce only 130 litres of water.
Its only a matter of time until consumers in Western industrial nations finally notice that a fruit, which environmentally is highly questionable, is being marketed as an innocent and ecologically sound alternative. The London restaurant Firedog has gone against the trend by removing avocado from their menu; so a start, at least, is being made.
