Avocado goldrush links US companies with Mexico's deforestation disaster

Del Monte

06/08/2024 11:34

By Cassandra Garrison
       URUAPAN, Mexico, Aug 6 (Reuters) - On a sweltering July
afternoon, two large yellow bulldozers dug into the brown soil
at the bottom of a lush avocado orchard near the small town of
Madero, located in central Mexico's Michoacan state. 
    Drone footage recorded by Reuters captured the earth movers
hollowing the ground, in what Mexican environmental group
Guardian Forestal - which collaborates with the Michoacan state
government - and an activist who reviewed the video described as
an attempt to construct a water reservoir.
    Mexican law requires an environmental impact study and
permit to store and use water for resource-intensive avocado
farming. Data from the national water authority Conagua showed
only 42 reservoirs and wells in Madero were registered with
permits. However, two activists interviewed by Reuters said
there were hundreds of similar water pools in the area.
    With Michoacan battling a drought, avocado producers often
resort to taking water from lakes or communal basins, draining
them to worrying lows, according to three local and state
officials. 
    Illegal practices in Mexico's avocado heartland, which is
expanding rapidly to feed growing demand in the United States,
come at the expense of nearby forests, according to Michoacan
government officials. 
    The environmental damage has prompted U.S. nonprofit the
Organic Consumers Association to file lawsuits against unlisted
West Pak Avocado Inc and another major avocado importer Fresh
Del Monte Produce Inc  FDP.N  for labeling Mexican avocados as
"sustainable" or "responsibly sourced."
    "Contrary to West Pak's representations, its avocados are
neither responsibly sourced nor environmentally sustainable,"
the Organic Consumers Association, a Minnesota-based lobby group
that has sued various food and agriculture companies over
marketing claims, said in one of the lawsuits. 
        West Pak declined to comment and Fresh Del Monte did not
respond to questions for this story.
    The U.S. lawsuits filed in DC Superior Court Monday shine a
spotlight on the supply chains of some U.S. companies operating
in the Mexican avocado industry. 
    While lucrative for the growers, the industry is under
increasing pressure from organized crime groups and facing
accusations of rising environmental damage.
        Reuters visited two orchards in July that an analysis of
satellite images by U.S. nonprofit Climate Rights International
showed were illegally deforested in Madero after 2015.
    Climate Rights International identified these two orchards
as having sold avocados to West Pak as recently as December and
January, according to Mexican government shipping records, also
reviewed by Reuters. 
        During a July visit, the news agency's journalists
observed the farm machinery digging a water reservoir on one of
them.
        The lawsuits, filed by Irvington, N.Y.-based law firm
Richman Law and Policy on behalf of the Organic Consumers
Association, demand an injunction be put in place that would
require West Pak and Fresh Del Monte to remove their marketing
claims of a sustainable supply chain, citing water scarcity,
climate change and a decline in the migration of endangered
Monarch butterflies that flock yearly to Michoacan.
        The Organic Consumers Association is also asking the
court to declare that the two avocado importers are violating
the District of Columbia's consumer protection law, and to bar
them from continuing such conduct.
  
    
        AVOCADO DEMAND SKYROCKETS    
  
    Avocado exports to the United States have soared 48% since
2019, according to U.S. trade data. The U.S. market accounts for
about 80% of Mexico's total avocado exports, data by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture shows, a trade worth $3 billion last
year.
        In February, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said
avocados sourced from illegal orchards should be blocked from
the U.S. market. There has been no government action from either
Washington or Mexico to do so.
  
    The voracious U.S. demand for the staple ingredient of
guacamole divides communities in Mexico, where it is both a
driver of economic growth and the catalyst for an environmental
and social crisis.
    Dubbed "green gold" among Mexicans, the avocado trade has
attracted crime groups that extort payments from producers and
have acted as muscle for others by displacing people and
deforesting the once-verdant countryside, according to 10 locals
interviewed by Reuters in Michoacan. 
    Climate Rights International, whose findings are cited in
the Organic Consumers Association's lawsuits, said it has
documented more than 30 threats or acts of intimidation
associated with the expanded avocado trade, including four
abductions and five fatal shootings.
        One Madero farmer, who asked to remain anonymous due to
concerns for his safety, said he was was kidnapped after he
protested deforestation. "If they only knew ... behind every
avocado that people in the United States eat, there is a
bloodstain, a dead person, a missing person," he said.
        Reuters could not independently verify the accounts from
the local residents or Climate Rights International's findings.
  
    Up to 70,000 acres in Michoacan and neighboring Jalisco
state have been deforested for avocado farming in the last
decade, the data from Guardian Forestal and Climate Rights
International show. 
    Residents told Reuters some local people fight back by
destroying the illegal water pumps installed by producers that
drain communal reservoirs.
        "They have even gone to destroy avocado orchards," said
Claudia Alejandra Sanchez, an activist for Michoacan's Purepecha
indigenous people. 
  
    Climate Rights International, which has tracked human rights
violations linked to climate change including in Mexico's
avocado trade, told Reuters it contacted West Pak, Fresh Del
Monte and other U.S. importers and supermarket chains including
Whole Foods Market, Costco  COST.O , Trader Joe's and Target
 TGT.N  in April and November last year regarding their supply
chains. Reuters reviewed copies of letters shared by Climate
Rights International. 
    Yet the importers and U.S. retailers still sell avocados
sourced from illegally deforested orchards in Michoacan,
according to a new report by Climate Rights International and
Guardian Forestal exclusively reviewed by Reuters.
    The new data shows West Pak, Fresh Del Monte and other
importers kept shipping from illegally deforested orchards even
after being informed of the deforestation in their supply chain,
according to Climate Rights International's analysis of trade
records. 
        The two importers' avocados landed on the shelves of
U.S. supermarkets, the Climate Rights International's findings
showed. Most of those companies have publicly pledged to adhere
to sustainable supply chains in compliance with local laws.  
    Reuters requested comment from nine major U.S. supermarkets
and food chains that sell Mexican avocados to ask how they
ensured their supply chains were free of illegal deforestation
and violent exploitation.
    Only Amazon's  AMZN.O  Whole Foods Market responded, saying
it was actively working with its suppliers to "prioritize Fair
Trade certified and other responsibly sourced avocados."
        Daniel Wilkinson, Climate Rights International's senior
adviser, said: "If these companies are serious about their
public commitment to sustainability, they could easily clean up
their supply chains and greatly reduce the main incentive
driving the deforestation and attacks on local communities."
  
 
    
        'SET MOUNTAINS ON FIRE'
  
    Mexico requires legal permission to convert forest to
agricultural land and has not granted such authorizations in
Michoacan for nearly three decades, Michoacan's Secretary Of
Environment Alejandro Mendez told Reuters.
    "About eight or ten years ago it was pure wilderness here,"
said Madero's environmental director Savas Melchor Gomez,
standing in front of the orchard's trees. "They set the
mountains on fire to clear them and continue expanding, and it
goes on and on." 
    To deal with endemic logging, Michoacan officials plan to
establish an online platform that offers public information
about illegally deforested orchards.
        The platform, which officials said they want to launch
this month, would certify avocados from orchards that do not
deforest illegally.
  
        Michoacan Governor Alfredo Ramirez said the platform
should enhance transparency by allowing foreign governments and
companies to see where avocados from illegally deforested areas
are going.
  
        "So far, no large supermarket has approached us over
this issue... but we do not really see an interest in it, these
companies taking any responsibility," Ramirez said in an
interview. 
  
    Activists, local officials and researchers who spoke to
Reuters estimated the true number of illegal orchards in
Michoacan was likely in the thousands and would not be properly
identified by the platform, which only includes illegal
deforestation after 2018. 

 (Reporting by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Christian Plumb
and Diane Craft)
 ((Cassandra.Garrison@thomsonreuters.com; +52 55 6200 7873;))