The devil’s avocate
by Diana Ramírez Mejía, Laura Castrejon Violante and Erika Luna Perez
We love avocados. But we are not the only ones, are we? Avocado has become so popular lately. It is on our toast, in every vegan recipe, it even has a show on Netflix. It is no secret that avocados are one of the most nutritious fruits: they have high protein content, monounsaturated fats, loads of vitamin A, potassium, phosphorus and calcium, and they give us tons of energy.
Archeological evidence from a cave located in Mexico — the Coaxcatlán cave in Tehuacán — dates the domestication of wild avocados back to ~7,000 BC. Mexico’s vast cultural diversity and the high levels of species richness found in that geographical area, led to the domestication and diversification of more than 130 crop wild relatives, including avocados.
Over the last decades, avocado consumption skyrocketed globally, mainly due to increased awareness of healthy food, changes in lifestyle, and marketing campaigns.
But one of the most important reasons behind this “avocado boom” was the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Ratified by Canada, the United States and Mexico, NAFTA opened free trade of a variety of goods including Mexican grown avocado pears. Nowadays, Mexico is the main avocado producer and exporter in the world. In 2018, it produced more than two million tons — about one third of the total global production.
Approximately 80% of Mexican avocado exports ended in the United States, a trade valued at ~2.4 billion US dollars. The fruit is currently cultivated in 28 out of the 32 Mexican states, but only one is known as the top producer and exporter: the state of Michoacán. For instance, Canada is the second largest recipient of Mexican avocados, of which almost 95% come from Michoacán.
The most commonly traded avocado is the Hass variety, as it has several traits optimal for worldwide commerce: rough and thick skin that endures low temperatures, small seed, fruit size optimal for trading great amounts in a single box, and long post-harvest life (up to 3–4 weeks).
However, the increased popularity of having avocado all year long in North America comes with substantial environmental and socioeconomic costs. The continued expansion and intensification of Hass’ monocultures during the past decades has had an inevitable impact on the environment, and has risked the well-being of impoverished small farmers. Water consumption by an avocado tree is huge — estimated to be about four times greater than that of a pine tree. But, while pine and oak forests have complex root systems that help water infiltrate and enhance groundwater recharge, avocado trees are shallow-rooted which means they absorb moisture and water from the surface of the soil and don’t infiltrate into the deeper soil layers. Hence, land use change towards avocado orchards translates to larger amounts of water consumption, no groundwater infiltration, and soil erosion and water pollution due to high use of fertilizers and herbicides to maintain yields year-round.
Transforming agro-diverse farms into monocultures reduces crop diversity and in situ genetic richness of avocado and other crop wild relatives, making the whole system more vulnerable to pests, climate change and price fluctuations. Moreover, roughly one third of the production of Mexico comes from tens of thousands of small farmers in orchards of less than two hectares, who, seeking to get out of poverty, have now locked themselves in a fragile agroecosystem that hinges on profits, declining soil fertility, and an increasingly eroded genetic pool. Furthermore, avocado production and trade within Mexico have been increasingly intermingled with drug cartels who control the land and demand a portion of the profits. Yet, rampant deforestation driven by the establishment of new avocado orchards has been overlooked by every government’s environmental protection agency and no social policy has been implemented to support avocado small farmers.
All these developments are worrisome and lead to the question if a boycott on Mexican avocados would be the way to go — as chefs around the globe have recently started to call out for reducing avocado consumption because of its environmental footprint and social impacts. Or would tagging them as a “blood fruit” hurt small farmers even further by risking the source of their livelihoods for something that is beyond their control?
We live in an increasingly interconnected world, where places of production and places of consumption are becoming more distant geographically, yet closer in terms of value chains. The changing economy and consumer preferences can have spillover effects and unintended outcomes across the supply chain. The problem seems to be far more complex than just removing avocados from the brunch menu. Instead of boycotting an industry that generates jobs and revenues through each step of its value chain, we could start by raising our voices and demanding that governments take action to ensure environmentally sustainable production and smallholder security. Strengthening institutions in charge of avoiding collision and collusion between farmers and organized crime, along with law and policies regulating production might be a more fruitful path.
Still, fresh avocados are a trendy product and continuous supply has been guaranteed, but that can change anytime. For instance, the uncertainty behind NAFTA’s transition to USMCA might threaten avocado supply in North America, as trade rules might change. The new agreement, signed by the three presidents in November 2018, has only been ratified by Mexico — until the agreement is ratified by all three countries’ congresses, it will not be binding. Canada’s ratification is pending and the government has declared they would wait and move in tandem with US ratification. Now is up to the US congress to approve it, but given the current political instability (i.e. president Trump impeachment process), it is highly likely USMCA won’t be ratified by the end of 2019. The outlook for the coming year is not positive either, as the US will hold elections. Mexico — forecasting an unfavorable scenario where UMSCA is not ratified — is already trying to expand and diversify its avocado export markets.
Whatever the scenario, one thing is certain: as the demand for avocado continues, pressures on producing regions will continue to be high as well. Whether producing countries will be able to cope with the eager consumers is still to be seen. Severe droughts and water shortages have already affected the avocado-producing regions in Chile and are now forcing California producers to close their farms. And we still haven’t considered the potential impacts of extreme weather events, which have already affected major staple crops in several regions of the US.
There is no easy answer on what we should do as consumers, but acknowledging the environmental and social cost of an avocado (and accounting for that in our consumption habits) sure is a good start.
