Around two decades ago 90 percent of avocados purchased and eaten in America were grown in Southern California. California supplied the nation – and Southern California was the Avocado Capital of America.
There’s two reasons for this. First, until 15-20 years ago, avocados weren’t the wildly popular, mainstream fruit they are today. Instead, they were a niche-fruit, eaten mostly by Americans of Latino and Caribbean ethnic backgrounds and by people who enjoyed exploring different types of foods. Mega-popular Guacamole, the avocado-based dressing and dip, wasn’t even part of the vocabulary of most Americans two decades ago.
The second reason Southern California owned the U.S. avocado market until the early 2000s was because the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had banned the importation of avocados from Mexico for decades under a 1914 import ban, which originally was put into place due to fears over pests like seed weevils infesting U.S. crops.
USDA lifted the ban in 1997, which opened the door to the importation of Hass variety avocados from Mexico. Hass is the avocado variety most-favored by Americans. It’s also the primary variety grown in Southern California and Mexico. Here at home Florida also grows some avocados, the Fuerte or green skin variety, which aren’t favored by most American consumers.
Avocados are still grown in Southern California and there’s a domestic market for every single Hass avocado produced by growers here in the Golden State.
But what’s also grown is consumer demand for avocados. Since 2001 per-capita avocado consumption in the U.S. has grown from 2 pounds to over 9 pounds today, according to research from agriculture-focused investment firm RaboBank. That’s some healthy growth in avocado consumption.
Another growing demand by U.S. consumers – and retail grocers will tell you how unhappy shoppers get when stores run out of avocados even for a couple of days – is to be able to buy and eat avocados year-round. Americans want their Guacamole and avocado toast whenever they desire it, not just on a seasonal basis. The California avocado crop is seasonal. Mexico produces avocados nearly year-round.
Today Mexico produces about 80% of all the avocados sold and eaten in the U.S.Around 10-15% are produced in Southern California, with the remaining percent coming primarily from Florida and countries like Peru and Colombia.
Avocados are an interesting case study in consumer demand and supply — California, which is the only state in the U.S. that grows Hass variety avocados, can’t grow anywhere near enough to meet consumer demand, nor can they be grown throughout the year like in Mexico – as well as in international trade.
Before lifting the avocado import ban in 1997, USDA received numerous objections to doing so from domestic avocado growers. But because of the enactment of NAFTA, the U.S. government and farmers wanted to be able to sell corn and other agricultural crops to Mexico under the rules of the 1994 free trade agreement. The Mexican government pushed back though, demanding a quid pro quo of sorts to help balance trade between the two countries, which favored the U.S. at the time. The Mexican government offered to export avocados and the U.S. agreed, opening the door for avocado imports from Mexico to the U.S., in return for U.S. exports of corn and other crops.
Neither Mexico nor the U.S. had any idea consumer demand for avocados in the U.S. would grow like it has, from 2 pounds per-capita in 2011 to over 9 pounds per-capita in 2022. Mexico has done a lot of work though to help increase avocado consumption in the U.S. through its Avocados From Mexico marketing arm, spending millions of dollars to promote the golden fruit in the U.S. through advertising and public relations efforts. The efforts are extremely successful.
But even more importantly, Americans say in survey after survey as well as demonstrating with their dollars at the grocery store that they love the taste of Hass avocados from Mexico just as much as they do California avocados, which when it comes to any food is what matters most in terms of growth in consumption and sales.
There’s considerable concern that imports of foreign produce, particularly from Mexico, pose a real danger to California agriculture. There’s some truth in this, especially when it comes to cheaper Mexican imports like asparagus, peppers, tomatoes and some other market crops. But in the case of avocados, consumer demand has to be met and California can’t do that., nor can it offer a year-round supply of Hass avocados to the nation.
Avocados imported from Mexico do provide an economic benefit to the U.S., according to a recent study by Texas A&M University. The report found that the U.S. economy benefited from the importation of Mexican Hass avocados in terms of labor and tax revenue, reaching $3.9 billion in labor income throughout the supply chain and $1.3 billion in tax revenue in 2022.
I do have real concern though about the state of avocado farming in Southern California. For example, due to the drought, the high cost of irrigation water and heatwaves, the value of the 2021 Hass avocado crop in San Diego County shrank by 46 percent in 2021, from roughly $153 million to $82.8 million, according to the recently released county crop report.
Avocados farmers in San Diego County have increasingly been taking land out of production because of the skyrocketing cost of water. According to the country crop report, growers harvested 14,458 acres in 2021, down from more than 26,000 acres in 2007. From 2007 to 2021, the cost of water to avocado growers has nearly tripled, according to the crop report.
The five main California counties where avocados are grown are: San Diego, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Riverside and San Luis Obispo. Growers in these counties too are having struggles similar to those the San Diego County avocado farmers are having because of drought and the soaring cost of irrigation water. Avocado trees need to be irrigated year-round.
More attention needs to be paid to the struggles California avocado farmers are having, particularly by the California Department of Agriculture. California is an important player in the overall avocado market, producing the only domestic Hass avocados. Efforts need to be made to prevent growers from continuing to be forced to take land out of production.
More aggressive efforts to promote California-grown Hass avocados also are needed. The current efforts are nearly non-existent. Meanwhile, Mexico has a phenomenal marketing program that promotes Mexican avocados to U.S. consumers.
Meanwhile, U.S. consumer demand for avocados continues to grow, with annual growth projected to be 5-6% annually from 2022-2027.
The rise of the avocado in America is far from over. In two decades, avocados have gone from a niche food to a mainstream fruit that nearly every American eats regularly. The avocado today is as American as apple pie and the Super Bowl, which itself has become synonymous with eating avocados and the now American dish called guacamole.
