By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Avocados have become so popular, in fact, that their status as a cash crop has earned them the name “green gold.”
Unfortunately, the world’s growing infatuation with them means that the environmental impact of avocados is becoming increasingly more problematic.
This was revealed in a feature published on Green matters on Thursday and written by Andrew Krosofsky.
Monoculture crops like avocados wind up drawing all the nutrients from the soil, slowly degrading it year after year. This makes the soil less fertile over time until it is no longer viable for growing. According to Youmatter, this process can leave crops more susceptible to pests and disease, which, in turn, means that more pesticides and fertilizers will need to be used. Those chemicals can contaminate the soils and affect other forms of local plants and wildlife.
Plantation-farmed cash crop commodities like avocados also encourage deforestation, as local farmers slash and burn huge swaths of natural land to make room for new and larger plantations. Deforestation also leads to climate change, extinction, and increased amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Removing forests also leads to soil erosion, which can cause flooding, mudslides, and other dangerous conditions.
The avocado’s biggest problem is the amount of water it consumes. According to Youmatter, avocado plantations put an incredible degree of pressure on a region’s water supply. The World Economic Forum reports that around 9.5 billion liters of water are used every day in order to grow avocados. For scale, that’s about 3,800 Olympic pools-worth of water.
Considering that avos are often grown in areas that are prone to drought, the simple act of growing avocados could wind up depriving entire communities of the life-giving water they need to survive. The cost to transport avocados is fairly high in terms of environmental impact as well. Truckloads of these sought-after berries — yes, avocados are technically berries — pump huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere as they wend their way across the world.
Apart from it’s impact on the environment, Avocados are good for your eyes, may prevent osteoporosis, and though further study is needed in terms of human testing, research has even shown them to be a potential bulwark against certain types of breast, oral, and throat cancers.
They are also pretty easy to grow, especially in warm, humid climates of about 60 to 80 percent humidity, according to The Happy Sprout.
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