Environment | Mexico

Avocados: The green gold rush

The global appetite for avocados is generating big bucks in Michoacán. Behind the scenes, criminal groups illegally clear forests and steal municipal water for cultivation. The risks are large but the benefits remain in the hands of a few

A harvest worker picks avocados for export

“What's that up on the hill? Do avocados grow there? It used to be a forest,” says a friend who, like me, lives in Pátzcuaro, the largest town on the lake of the same name. We are standing together on its shore. She is surprised at how quickly the landscape has changed and how Pátzcuaro lake is shrinking year-on-year.

There are increasing reports of tanker lorries illegally pumping water out of the lake. These lorries, called ‘pipas’, are supposed to deliver water to residential areas that have none. However, more and more pipa drivers are being prosecuted. Instead of bringing the water to the people, they transport it to the avocado plantations, more and more of which line the shores of the lake in the state of Michoacán.

Where there used to be dense forest, there are now endless “green gold” plantations. And increasing numbers of farmers are planting avocados instead of maize and vegetables. The temptation is too great, because the green fruit brings in a lot of money.

“The ecological price of the avocado is high: forest fires are raging, water is being stolen”


In November 2023, the organisation Climate Rights International (CRI) published a report on the balance of avocado expansion. According to the report, around eighty percent of Mexican avocado production is destined for the US market and generates annual profits of three billion US dollars; the remaining twenty percent goes to Europe, while Asia and Canada generate another two billion annually.

However, the ecological price is high: for years, fires have been set in the forests to make space for the fruit, and water has been stolen. Fuelled by the international market, it is a plague that threatens the livelihoods of countless people.

In April 2024, several hills and mountain slopes near Lake Pátzcuaro were ablaze, the temperature climbed to 35 degrees and there was no rain in sight. To the contrary, the heat continued to rise. The inhabitants of the region, which includes Lake Zirahuén, tried to put out the fires together, collecting food and tools.

Many people volunteered to help state fire brigade and gradually, the fires were contained, but not the criminal behaviour of the avocado producers continued unchecked. A young man from Tzurumutaro, who had organised himself with his friends and was on his way to one of the fires on a hill, reported: “Suddenly we were stopped by a group of armed and masked men. They said we shouldn't even think about putting out the fire because it was there to clear the land and plant avocados. We'd better go back home. And that's what we did because we were afraid.”

“Avocado plantations are fed with stolen water”

It is important to note that both Lake Pátzcuaro and Lake Zirahuén are part of a water system that is connected underground and depends on the existence of the forests. Rainwater seeps into the forest floor and fills the lakes but these days Pátzcuaro Lake is already almost irreversibly dry.

Water theft by avocado producers is the main reason that the water levels have fallen yet further in 2024. The fruits need so much water that pumps and hoses with a diameter of at least ten centimetres are used.

“This theft and deforestation have dire consequences for the local population,” says the aforementioned CRI report. “There is a shortage of water and an increased risk of deadly landslides and flooding.” Thanks to anonymous reports, it was possible to localise the taps within a short space of time.

Where no direct pipes could be laid, hundreds of tanker lorries were used to transport the water, driving in convoys to the plantations. The local population witnessed this happening. According to figures from the environmental authority in Pátzcuaro, at least 400 pumps were confiscated between March and May 2024. Cases of water theft have also spread to the administrative districts around Lake Zirahuén.

“Buring forests have dire consequences for the local population”

The Committee for Community Resources in Zirahuén, a town on the lake of the same name in the Municipio Salvador Escalante, recounts a case that highlights the extent of the problem: “We recently confiscated a pump with a diameter of just under 15 centimetres. It starts automatically when the water tank is empty and pumps out an average of 6,600 litres of water per minute.

We handed it over to the state authorities, but a few days later we learnt that the avocado producer who owned it had got it back. Civil Guard officers then came, had a look round, took photos and left again.” The ineffective official response shows that laws in Michoacán are not being enforced.

Avocado producers are not being prosecuted. Meanwhile, they are not afraid to use any means to achieve their goal of mass exports, especially to the USA. By stealing water, they are directly violating the rules of Mexico's concession system, which is supposed to guarantee the population's water supply from surface waters such as the Pátzcuaro and Zirahuén rivers as well as underground reservoirs.

The avocado monoculture depletes the soil and is now the main cause of the severe drought that is plaguing the maritime regions of Michoacán and, more recently, the south of Jalisco. But that's not all: the green gold business is often even secured by armed troops. The presence of criminal gangs in the avocado business has increased at the latest since the ‘Caballeros Templarios’ cartel took control of large parts of Michoacán (from 2009 to 2012).

“Avocados are grown for the USA, Canada, England and Germany”

Initially, they kidnapped members of the rich producer families who controlled this industry in order to extort ransoms. When vigilante groups formed and put up armed resistance (especially between 2013 and 2014), they became strategic partners and protectors of the producers.

As soon as the ‘Caballeros Templarios’ cartel was crushed, the remaining mercenaries offered their services to the avocado bosses. In the administrative district of Tancítaro, for example, a force was formed to protect the plantations.

Members of both the old cartels and the new dominant narco organisation in Michoacán, the ‘Cartél de Jalisco Nueva Generación’, soon began to invest in the green gold business.

It offered them a way to launder their money. A worker at one of Michoacán's most important avocado companies, who wishes to remain anonymous, says: “From one day to the next, the narcos are turning millions of pesos from their criminal business into “clean” money. The authorities know about it, but don't say anything because they make money from it or even own avocado plantations themselves.”

In a factory hall, you can see several packing tables from above, where employees in protective clothing are taking avocados from conveyor belts and packing them into boxes

A packaging plant in Aztecavo that works 24 hours a day

 

 

“Foreign appetite for avocados feeds Mexican criminal networks”  

While US and European consumers enjoy avocado toast and guacamole in abundance, the fruit is not a staple food in Mexico itself. Instead, production is focussed on markets in the USA, Canada, England and Germany. This is also due to aggressive marketing aimed at emphasising how healthy avocados are.

This health trend makes it all the more bitterly ironic that avocado cultivation is causing water shortages, soil degradation and human rights violations in many Mexican regions, as well as in other growing countries such as Peru and Chile.

How can we escape the vicious circle of overproduction, ruthless pursuit of profit, crime and corruption? One answer would be to reduce demand from abroad. But first of all, the laws that exist in Mexico to protect nature and the people who suffer as a result of avocado cultivation must be implemented.

“How can we escape the vicious circle of overproduction, ruthless profiteering, crime and corruption?”

However, many communities in the lake region of Michoacán did not want to wait for the authorities to act. Some locals, including indigenous people from the Purépecha tribe, have been fighting to protect the forests. In response, they faced violent attacks, both by the cartels and by the police.

In some places, the cultivation of avocados has been completely banned. Communities such as Zirahuén and Jaracuaro are calling for reforestation with pine, oak or cypress. At the time of writing, volunteers are bringing around one million pine and oak seedlings to the various villages in the lake region. People are organised into brigades to plant the seedlings and tend to them.

In Pátzcuaro, a group of volunteers came together to reopen and protect the springs on the Muelle General, the lakeside promenade. For months, they cleaned up part of the lake basin without receiving any money or support from the local government. ‘What we need are hoes, shovels and the will to lend a hand,’ says María Cristina Ibarra, a trader from Pátzcuaro.

“Consumers in the USA and Europe need to wake up to how their avocado comsumption is impacting entire ecosystems in Mexico”

Finally, in mid-April this year, the Michoacán government announced that it would implement a plan to protect the springs. It arrived with excavators and lots of photographers, but in the end all it did was turn over the earth that María Cristina's group had already cleaned and “The diggers may still be important, but first the small, natural springs have to be opened up by ” says Cristina.

“All we know about the water theft is that the authorities know about it. If I go here and steal water, they'll put me in prison. But the avocado and berry producers have been doing it for a long time - and with impunity.”

“An urgent search for new solutions”

There are already efforts to find a technical solution to avocado production's dirty legacy. For example, Gonzalo Méndez, a chemical engineer at HIFA, describes a method in which a network of fungi promotes the underground redistribution of nutrients and water on avocado plantations. This equips monocultures with the necessary weapons to defeat diseases and plagues without harmful fertilisers and pesticides.

HIFA developed a biostimulator made from mycorrhizal fungi under the product name Tierra Negra. According to the company, it reduced water consumption and the use of aggressive fertilisers on plantations in the south of the state of Jalisco between 2022 and 2023, while increasing yields.

“When the necessary microorganisms, fungi and bacteria, are added to the soil, you get more organic matter, and when the soil is healthy, it reacts like a sponge. Nutrients and water are stored more effectively and are needed in smaller quantities,” explains engineer Méndez. But of course, given the scale of the problems, such approaches are a drop in the ocean.

But one thing is certain: consumers in the USA and Europe wake up to how their excessive consumption of avocados is contributing to the destruction of entire ecosystems in Mexico - and in some cases fuelling violent conflicts.

Translated by Miriam Denger and Jess Smee