Avocado production in Mexico
[6] Additionally, with the avocado industry being so large in Mexico, it leads to environmental consequences such as deforestation and water scarcity.
[7] Some of these environmental problems are compounded by the involvement of the cartels who have been making aggressive advances into the industry causing harm to the agricultural community at large.
[10] Ancient residents of Mexico including the Aztecs and other indigenous groups thought that the form of a fruit contributed to its properties.
16th-century Spanish colonial documentation of Indian medicinal plant usage reaffirms this association, noting the fruit's reputation as an aphrodisiac, as well as its propensity for aiding childbirth and reducing inflammation and indigestion.
[5] This cultivar emerged when a postal worker in Southern California, Rudolph Hass, took a leap of faith to purchase a small 1.5-acre grove in La Habra Heights to experiment with growing high-yield avocado trees.
[16] The favourable conditions for large production in the country is on account of availability of land, cheap labour, and rainfall pattern.
This opacity reduces communication across the supply chain, suppresses information on production conditions, and increases the risk of environmental and social harm.
[20] Mexican exporters maintain a farm-tracking database at the carton level, but they only communicate the country of origin to retailers and end-consumers.
However, this doesn't have to be the case if the industry would involve more small-scale farmers and implement more environmentally friendly practices such as eliminating current monocropping trends.
[26][27][28][29] These studies also show a trend in avocado production in Michoacán leading to issues of habitat fragmentation and lowered sequestration of carbon.
Additionally, between 2004 and 2014 montane and tropical forest cover has significantly decreased in avocado production regions of Michoacán.
[25][30] Many of these studies have also shown that the United States is a key driver of deforestation in Mexico through their demand for avocados and the role that large corporations play in the industry.
The United States imports about 80 percent of all avocado exports from Mexico which totals around 3 billion dollars each year.
[16] These restrictions were eliminated in 1997,[33] building on momentum from the North American Free Trade Agreement to encourage cross-continental exchange.
[35] From the late 2010s and early 2020s avocado farming in Mexico has been significantly impacted by gang racketeering (see Pueblos Unidos).
[38] This violence notably takes the form of kidnapping of family and murder if farmers refuse to pay "protection fees" to the cartels.
[39] The cartels have also, unintentionally, been growing the avocado industry by logging on protected forests and diverting local water sources to irrigate their farms.
[8][44] However, for communities that can't afford to rent out a police force, they may form their own militias, sometimes referred to as "autodefensa" groups.
