- Suppliers Calavo Growers, Fresh Del Monte Produce, Mission Produce and West Pak Avocado purchased avocados from land where forests have been cleared illegally, according to a recent investigation.
- Climate Rights International and Mexican NGO Guardián Forestal looked at Mexican avocado shipping records from 2023 and the first trimester of 2024, finding 60 instances of companies buying avocados from deforested land.
- The states of Michoacán and Jalisco produced over 2 million avocados last year, making it one of the area’s top industries. But residents there complain of water shortages and other environmental impacts.
MEXICO CITY — Top suppliers of Mexican avocados continue to work with growers who use land where forests have been cleared illegally, a new investigation shows.
Top suppliers Calavo Growers, Fresh Del Monte Produce, Mission Produce and West Pak Avocado purchased avocados in 2023 and 2024 from illegally deforested land, according to a new investigation from Climate Rights International (CRI), an environmental and human rights group, and Mexican NGO Guardián Forestal.
“The continued sourcing of avocados from deforested land by these companies is in defiance of the public statements of Mexican and U.S. officials and shows a serious disregard for the well-being of local communities and the environment,” CRI senior policy advisor Daniel Wilkinson said in a statement.
The investigation looked at Mexican avocado shipping records from 2023 and the first trimester of 2024, finding 60 instances of suppliers buying avocados from deforested land in some of the country’s top producing states, including Michoacán and Jalisco.
Michoacán, in central Mexico, produced over 1.9 million avocados last year while neighboring Jalisco produced over 322,000, making avocado production one of the area’s top industries.
In total, Mexico exported nearly $3 billion of avocados to the US last year, marking a nearly 75% increase in production over the last decade, according to USDA. But the industry’s massive growth hasn’t come with proper regulation, critics say.
Michoacán has lost about 17% of its humid primary forests in the last decade, according to Global Forest Watch, much of it from avocados, other agriculture and logging. The activities threaten wildlife and the migratory paths of species like the monarch butterfly.
Replacing natural forests with avocado can also exacerbate water shortages in an already dry climate. Last year, Mongabay reported on small towns and rural communities whose residents had started relying on water delivered in trucks because surrounding avocado plantations had destroyed natural aquifers.
“I don’t think we have to speculate about what’s going to happen [to the environment]. The thing is that it’s already happening,” said a legal expert in the state of Michoacán, who wished to remain anonymous. “There are more and more social problems due to water shortages…Several towns in the lower part of the watershed have been left without a drop of water — not even to drink.”
Over the last decade, the avocado industry has caused as much as an estimated 28,327 hectares (70,000 acres) of deforestation in Michoacán and Jalisco, according to the investigation. Last year, in a separate investigation, CRI also found thousands of hectares of land that looked like they were being prepared for avocado cultivation for years to come, with small plantings, “grid-like arrangements” and water storage pools visible in satellite images.
In February, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar held a press conference in Michoacán with state governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, stressing a commitment to removing avocados grown on illegally deforested land from their exports.
Nevertheless, top suppliers like Calavo Growers, Fresh Del Monte Produce, Mission Produce and West Pak Avocado were all found to have purchased avocados from illegally deforested land on multiple occasions between May 2023 and April 2024.
They supply major supermarket chains like Albertsons, Costco, Kroger, Target, Trader Joe’s, Walmart and Whole Foods.
None of the suppliers responded to a request for comment for this article. But all of them have made some form of a sustainability commitment involving reducing their carbon footprint, improving water use efficiency and helping local communities.
The supermarket chains, which also didn’t responded to a comment request or were unable to be reached, also have environmental commitments.
“We should all realize that there’s a terrible impact on biodiversity,” the legal expert said. “…These forests are transformed into avocado orchards and then that biodiversity will be lost, and that’s unrecoverable. Once those species are lost, they can’t be brought back again.”
Banner image: Avocado plantations in Mexico. Photo by Juan Manuel González/Canal 44
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