Why America now eats a crazy number of avocados

You hit on it. This is something that (small cohort of) American farmers can do domestically, but at a higher level, we ought to determine if it's better to do that or to have a trade arrangement. I really believe that Mexican avocados is a win/win. It frees up California farmers to produce more essential resources, and it gives Mexico a very viable export. I really like this as a study of healthy trade.

All these superlatives ("voracious appetite", "devours", "conquering America", "dazzling", "crazy number") in the first few paragraphs alone make it sound like an Apple announcement or something.

Also, the "9 pounds of avocados a year" is about 27 avocados/year, or about one avocado every two weeks. Sounds a lot less spectacular. Of course, what we really need to know is many Olympic swimming pools all those avocados would fill.

That first website is quite amusing to someone not in avacados...

"HAPRIO IMPACT The Hass Avocado Promotion, Research and Information Order (HAPRIO) created the Hass Avocado Board (HAB), an industry-funded national program that has been recognized for being key to growing U.S. avocado consumption and driving value for producers and importers since its inception in 2002."

sounds like an apache project.

They're not quite opposite.

High appetite -> lots of fruit imported -> consumption "explodes"

You can't consume what you don't have, so if they're not growing enough then they have to import them before they can be eaten.

Both importing and consumption are downstream of high demand, but consumption is downstream of high importing.

I guess the first sentence could be restated as, “the reason avocados have exploded in the U.S. is that Mexican avocados are much more affordable”; although, the author goes on to state that the price isn’t a driver, and touches on the necessity of getting them from Mexico for year round availability.

Simplistic interpretation, demand increases, supply and price changes occur inline with the demand. More external supply at a lower price, more people buy avocados.

(Ironically, my dad won an award as a USDA bureaucrat for the economic analysis and rule set that allowed Mexican avocados into the US.)

When you remove a barrier to a market the intersection of supply and demand curves shifts to the right (more supply) and the equilibrium price drops and the equilibrium supply increases. “Why does this happen?” is more correctly explained by “the supply increased” because the supply curve is what changed, not the demand curve. Note that the article argues for a subsequent change in the demand curve, fueled by tax-funded advertising.

Simple, the purpose of the article is to argue against tariffs.

Imported = cheaper

"Kinda feel like this is tariff bait"

Kinda looks like click bait generally. Per-capita US avocado consumption is about 9 lbs./y. That's a bit more than 1 per month of the large Mexican avacados. Somehow that's "crazy!!1"

You would think there would be some joy for all this: something Americans will happily eat that isn't "ultraprocessed" and/or meat, and a Mexican product that isn't narcotics or fossil fuel. But no. omg they're so "resource intensive!"

Luxury anxieties, safely ignored.

assuming they start planting trees NOW. it takes approx 4-5 years for a grafted avocado tree to start bearing fruit.

of all the Tariff hit products this is probably the fastest of any of them to do what a Tariff is meant to do... Make the product attractive enough to produce locally unattractive to import.

if growers trust that Trump is consistent and reliable enough to stick to his guns around tariffs (and he hasnt been to date, so thats a real leap of faith), then Avocados will be one of the first products that we'll see the effect of his Tariffs paying dividends to america.

most the other industries and products take a lot longer than 4-5 years to "flip the switch" and start producing locally in numbers large enough to counter the imported numbers.

I haven't seen him do much to bolster that industry other than the tariff... so it may never kick off. What might happen is the "Fad" for avo products might just die off and by 4-5 years comes around it might not be a product in demand anymore.

Edit: oh also, 25% tariff might not BE ENOUGH of a price increase to affect the import numbers at all as well... its hard to know what the final straw is, in the consumer space. They can be fickle buggers.

Here in Brazil there's like 10 different versions of avocados.

You have all type of versions. Some are better to be eaten as guacamole... others are not. Here we do sweet avocados (just eat with sugar, or just put on a blender with milk).

Some of them have more fat, others have less...

Search for "Abacate pescoço". This is probably the most interesting and different one.

:)

I believe Hass is just better to export, because it doesn't spoil so easily.

Another fun fact: I think majority of people don't really buy avocados in supermarket. They are grown all over the place. Streets, backyard, parks... In my street there's like, 5 avocados trees (with each being different type). Hass is the most rare here, you'll usually find it on supermarket only...

Here in Guatemala they have regional avocados which also are terrible compared to Hass. What's cool though is that they grow all over the place and they're dirt cheap.

Once I went to a park and realized the tree at the park was a (regional) avocado tree. But the avocados were REALLY high up. Like, there was no way we were gonna climb that sucker. So I knocked on a door that was right by the park, and I asked the young girl who answered if she had a stick or something we could use.

She said "actually, we do" and she brought out this insanely long stick with a little forked part at the edge that was just for picking avocados. And we picked so, so many.

Ha, over here in Aus we get Hass most of the year but for a few weeks at the end of March/start of April we can only get Shepard and everyone moans about it!

Hass are definitely superior, but Shepard aren’t all that bad. Bit rubbery maybe :)

Yes most avocado sold in Europe are Hass. You can see by the shape and the skin type (others typically sold are longer and smoother outside usually).

My quick survey of California, Chile, Peru, Israel and Spain production suggests that Hass is the the most widely produced (maybe 80% of production) but other varieties are produced in lesser quantities.

Europe has TERRIBLE avocados.

You cannot get a good avocado in Denmark, period. Last attempt I got eight that looked good. All but two was basically rotten inside, the remaining two just meeh. Trying avocado and guacamole in the US is just something completely different. The avocados are huge and absolutely perfect.

I've just given up on avocados, I'll have to wait for a trip to Mexico or the US.

https://www.npr.org/2015/09/18/441530790/how-the-desperate-n...

You mean Norway. (See the link the sibling comment)

By providing parasite free salmon?

You make it sound nefarious, and maybe it is with farmed salmon.

Are there similar concerns with Hass avocados?

Or nazis and fondue.

A lot of work for a week day! It’s weetbix or porridge for me, Vegemite on toast if I have bread

My mother was eating Avocado toast in the 80s in California. That’s where I learned it.

It’s a cartel, and as with most commercial cartels, it’s enabled by government enforcement.

Oh dang, the policy discriminates against frozen avocados? Maybe just a filler word.

> Fittingly, with the new tarrifs, we all lose.

I live in a former Avocado farm that was subdivided into homes after NAFTA made US production less viable after Mexico undercut our labor. It was a 50 year old industry and local jobs that was wiped out with free trade. It wasn't a win win.