There are many articles on the internet describing the benefits of this tasty fruit including its benificial antioxidant contents. Unfortunately it is less popular how thirsty Avocado is... Is Avocado production & consumption sustainable?
Avocados are one of the more delicious fruits that a lot of people enjoy but the impacts it has on water resources is incredibly high. On average one tomato uses approximately 5 litres of water per fruit however an avocado (one fruit) uses 70 litres of water per fruit and on an average use 320 litres of water per kilogram of avocados. Yes, indeed it is a very thirsty fruit!!!
According to USDA (United States department of agriculture) avocado consumption has increased 450% in the last 20 years which means a per capita consumption increased from 1.6 pounds to as high as 7.1 pounds in 2016 in United States of America alone. A major increase in consumption of this fruit has seen across the world as well. Per year at least 5.9 million tonnes of avocados are produced on average. One single piece of avocado takes 70 litres of water and on a scale that big, this would mean that farmers are using approximately 413,000,000 litres of water per year.
“With an input of 70 Litres (approx. 70,000gm) of water an average fruit out of 160gm of Tasty Avocado is produced”. Can the world sustain such an inefficient farming process? “
Avocados are grown in hot and humid areas. The largest producers of avocados in the world are Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Indonesia, Columbia, Brazil, Chile and Kenya. Many of these regions where avocados are grown also face droughts often. In some parts of Chile the ground water dried up and left the citizens with very little drinking water reserves due to increased avocado farming.
Data from Mexico reveals that to grow avocados, it had a loss of about 1700 acres of land per year. In trying to make more and more avocados, avocado farmers in Mexico and other areas in South America had to cut down trees using industrial support so that they could have more farmland to grow more avocados. This resulted in increased deforestation. The woodlands of Mexico are native to a lot of animals. This led the Mexican government to stop avocado farming but people are still growing avocados illegally due to the increased demand of avocado and the profits from it.
Are the short-term view of farming profits leading more areas like Chile? Can consumer awareness lead to better farming practices ?
As you can see even the simplest eating habit such as eating avocados can end up in losing nearly half a billion litres of water and 1700 acres of land per year. I am sure, every one of us can move to more sustainable eating habits. So next time, when you a grab an avocado from the supermarket, do remember…
It consumes almost 20 days of water a human need… Yes, it is a very thirsty fruit…
What can we do?
We can do really simple things that will help us support this cause and those simple things are :
You can stop buying avocados.
Do not grow avocados.
Convince others to not buy avocados.
Join no avocado farming campaigns.
Promote good farming practices.
Sources :
“Avocados Are Bad for the Planet, Another Study Confirms.” MyRecipes, www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/avocados-are-bad-for-the-planet-another-study-confirms.
Usher, Tom. “This Is How Bad Your Avocado Obsession Is for the World.” Vice, 25 May 2018, www.vice.com/en_uk/article/7xm8ab/this-is-how-bad-your-avocado-obsession-is-for-the-world.
Hatzitolios, Chloe. “Our Obsession with Avocados Is Killing the Environment.” The Loop, 22 Aug. 1970, www.theloop.ca/our-obsession-with-avocados-is-killing-the-environment/.
MartindaleSenior, Wayne, and Sheffield Business SchoolTwitterLinkedIn. “Learn More.” Sheffield Hallam University, www.shu.ac.uk/learn-more/avocados.
1 comentário