Celebrity gardener’s calls to boycott the fruit are misguided according to industry association
A leading UK avocado supplier has hit back at from celebrity UK gardener Alan Titchmarsh this week to boycott the fruit.
In an interview with The Times, the TV gardening expert said people should replace avocados with cereal for breakfast, citing concerns over their environmental impact.
“Most of those sold in the UK are grown where the rainforest has been felled at an alarming rate to accommodate them,” he said. “They are then shipped, often more than 5,000 miles across the ocean, as breakfast for supposedly environmentally friendly consumers.
“There’s a lot to be said for Cornflakes, Weetabix and Shreddies.”
Mark Everett, avocados director at UK supplier Worldwide Fruit, told Fruitnet: “We have not sourced a box of avocados from Mexico in the last 12 months, with most of our supply coming from drier regions of the world where there has been no rainforest. Actually, where our avocado suppliers have established avocado farms in Peru and Chile they are classified as a carbon sink and aid biodiversity”.
He added: “I am visiting avocados farms in Portugal today and judging by the level of rain in recent days and this winter, there is no short-term concern about water availability”.
The World Avocado Organisation (WAO) has long argued that the environmental footprint of avocados compares favourably to many other foods.
“Avocados have a much more positive ecological footprint than often believed – the fruit’s water and carbon footprints are significantly lower than those of a wide variety of daily consumed foods,” WAO said, adding that “over the last decade the industry has been adopting new technologies and innovations that further support sustainable agricultural practices”.
Referring to the total amount of greenhouse gases generated during the lifecycle of a product, WAO pointed out that the carbon footprint of avocados is around 25 times less than that of beef, 10 times less than lamb or cheese, 7 times less than coffee, and comparable to that of other fruits.
A UK study in the Journal of Environmental Management found that avocados produce 2.4kg CO2 equivalents per kg in their production process – roughly equal to plums and strawberries, and less than raspberries and mangoes.
“Taking a wider view, avocados currently only make up 0.031 per cent of total world trade, a small fraction of global agricultural production. And avocado crops only represent 4 to 5 per cent of global production of vegetables and fruit so their environmental footprint is limited,” WAO said.
