Buy Fair Trade & Organic Avocados
March 19, 2025 | Source: Organic Consumers Association
The forests of Michoacán, Mexico are being invaded, burned by arsonists and illegally logged to serve our insatiable appetite for guacamole. Not even the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve is safe! Deforestation is expected to double by 2050 if Michuacán’s avocado plantations continue to expand.
U.S. companies are profiting from the “green gold” rush while turning a blind eye to the devastation caused by the avocado boom. They can stop the deforestation by refusing to buy avocados grown on recently cleared land.
Three avocado importers recently responded to Organic Consumers Association’s demand that they do so. Thanks to the legal eagles at Richman Law & Policy and the excellent work of Climate Rights International, OCA got Calavo Growers, Mission Produce, and West Pak Avocado to join Michoacán’s “Pro-Forest Avocado” program, which requires packinghouses to stop sourcing avocados from orchards on recently deforested land.
OCA’s fourth target, Fresh Del Monte Produce, is still sourcing avocados from orchards on illegally deforested lands and selling to major supermarket chains throughout the United States.
If your avocado isn’t organic and fair trade (or grown in California)…
It came from land that was recently, probably illegally, deforested, land that was stolen or cleared in an act of arson, or land that was stripped of its oak-pine forests or oyamel fir trees (the winter roosts of monarch butterflies).
It was irrigated with water siphoned without a permit away from the local community that now can’t grow their own food or bathe and have to buy water, even to drink, or abandon their land altogether.
It traveled a supply chain that involved cartels that extorted ‘protection money’ from the avocado farm or the packer, or hijacked the truck that was taking it to market, or murdered the indigenous forest guardians who spoke out about the stolen land, the burned forest and the siphoned water.
Michoacán and Jalisco are being plundered for short-term profits from unsustainable avocado farming. This might be wildly profitable, but it will ultimately destroy itself—and could take U.S. avocado farms down with it. California avocado farmers can’t compete against the artificially low cost of Mexican avocados.
That’s the case Kachuck Enterprises, Bantle Avocado Farm, Maskell Growers and Northern Capital, Inc., are making against Fresh Del Monte Produce, again with the help of Richman Law & Policy. These California avocado growers have suffered the consequences of Del Monte’s unfair competition and deception, misleading consumers to believe that Mexican-grown avocados are just as environmentally friendly as California-grown avocados.
“Our farms have adhered to rigorous sustainability standards for generations,” said Dr. Norm Kachuck, a lead plaintiff and second-generation avocado grower. “When packing houses falsely represent their products as responsibly sourced and environmentally sustainable, it undermines our U.S. environmental and food safety standards, deceives the public and consumers, and threatens the future of American agriculture.”
Del Monte has created an uneven playing field, deceiving U.S. consumers and decreasing profits for domestic growers all of whom must comply with stringent U.S. environmental and agricultural laws, follow environmentally sustainable practices, and incur the financial costs of doing so.
American farmers have long faced challenges competing with lower-cost imports that are marketed to U.S. consumers as substantially equivalent to domestic produce, prompting calls for greater transparency of agricultural ownership, financial reporting, and accountability in the import supply chain.
Kachuck and his fellow plaintiffs are seeking an injunction to halt Del Monte’s false advertising along with restitution of all monies unjustly acquired through unfair competition. The case is expected to draw attention to broader issues of sustainability and fair trade within the $2.8 billion U.S. avocado market.
“We’re not just fighting for our farms—we’re fighting for the trust of every consumer who cares about how their food is produced and where their food comes from,” added Kachuck. “It’s way past time for the truth to come out.”
This is why we should only eat California-grown organic avocados and Mexican-grown organic and fair trade avocados.