Los Angeles is the avocado capital of the United States. More than 140 million avocados were sold here last year, far more than any other metropolitan area in the country. And while I love guacamole and avocado toast as much as the next Angeleno, this consumption comes at a terrible cost that makes me feel quite conflicted about how much we consume.
Over the past year, I visited more than 25 communities in Michoacán and Jalisco, two mountainous states in western Mexico that supply 4 of every 5 avocados sold in the United States. My research there found that expanding avocado production to meet US demand is driving widespread deforestation and water scarcity.
The destruction of forests to install avocado orchards was clearly visible from the main roads in the region. So was the enormous amount of water farmers are using for irrigation: Private reservoirs, some the size of two NFL football fields, are common in the two drought-prone states, where many communities face water shortages. water.
But just because environmental degradation was obvious didn't mean it was easy to talk about. Many residents were too terrified to do so. Your fear is well founded. Efforts by indigenous communities and other residents to protect forests and water from avocado production have repeatedly run into challenges. threats and violence.
Despite these risks, many people in Michoacán and Jalisco continue to document, denounce and resist the destruction, including indigenous leaders, environmentalists, journalists and academics. But their efforts cannot compete with the profits that will be made by selling avocados to corporations that export the fruit, which often comes from deforested lands.
The Los Angeles area is home to three of these corporations: Calavo Growers Inc., Mission Produce Inc. and West Pak Avocado Inc., all leading exporters and importers of avocados from Mexico. They publicly proclaim his sustainability efforts, but are taking little or no action to prevent their supply chains from being compromised by deforestation and unsustainable water practices.
The recent research report I wrote for Climate Rights International There is documented evidence that these companies (and others that export and import to the US market) have sourced a portion of their avocados from Mexican orchards that contain illegally deforested land. When we asked them what they were doing to ensure their suppliers were not razing forests or stealing water, none provided information indicating they were taking adequate measures.
The Hass Avocado Board, also based in the Los Angeles area, is a federal government entity whose mission is to increase the demand of the US market for domestic and imported avocados. Is business plan 2024 emphasizes the need to communicate its “sustainability story” to consumers and build “trust” in how avocados are good for the environment. But it lacks proposals to reduce the industry's strong environmental impact.
What is needed is not more changes, but actions to make avocado supply chains between Mexico and the United States truly sustainable. The US government should prevent the sale of avocados if they were grown on recently deforested land. This would not be difficult to carry out.
Under the current US-Mexico certification program, which focuses exclusively on pest control, both governments already maintain GPS maps of every avocado orchard certified for export to the United States. They could compare those maps with time-sequenced satellite images to determine whether an orchard was established on recently deforested land and, if so, block its certification for export. Corporations have access to the same GPS maps and should also use them to identify recently deforested orchards and refuse to buy fruit from them.
Eliminating market access for avocados grown on recently deforested land would not ruin the avocado industry: most existing Mexican orchards are on land that has long been devoted to agriculture. But these regulations and policies would help put an end to the continued destruction of forests for avocado production.
Until action is taken, the only thing you can rely on when you eat guacamole or avocado toast is that there is a high risk that it has an undercurrent of environmental degradation and abuse in Mexico.
Max Schoening is a Los Angeles-based attorney who conducted the avocado research for Climate Rights International.
