The Sustainability Factor: What Are the Social and Environmental Impact of Avocados?

1. The Sustainability Factor: What Are the Social and Environmental Impact of Avocados? Following the latest trend in the Western world’s diet, the tasty flavoured avocados have various benefits for human health and well-being. Producing them in the industrial numbers is also harming the environment as well as the local populations. Following the rising demand for avocados and because they are available for sale online, the avocados online shopping should be a careful one. It is imperative to know whether the avocado production is sustainable for the environment or not. Similar to other foods which end up turning into commodities, just like coffee, palm oil, sugar as well as whole-flour or the soy, avocados are also grown as monoculture. This essentially means that the same crop grows in the same land year after year. In the short run, this mass scale agricultural technique is more interesting for investors or producers, but in the long run, it can turn to be very harmful to the environment. The production of the avocados turns unsustainable, given the following reasons: Monoculture plantations leave the soil with less nutrients and is more vulnerable to the diseases, generating a need to increase the use of many pesticides and fertilisers. The soils get contaminated along with surrounding biodiversity. This is particularly the case if the avocados get dragged in the runoff waters into the distant ecosystems, as is the case with the decline of monarch butterflies in Mexico. Over the long perids of time, monoculture crops also deplete the soil, taking away most of the mineral properties. The wrong reasons which make avocado production unsustainable are: - The amount of water it consumes. There are some estimates regarding the region of production of avocados. Some people believe buying avocados from other less problematic countries could solve this issue. However, one cannot be sure that the avocados coming from the Dominican Republic, Peru, Chile as well as Colombia, are far more sustainable or ethically produced. The solution is when we purchase the fashionable and trendy import like the avocado, we should be certain that it will be beneficial for the communities that grow it and the planet which supports it, along with our personal health and food desires. Although there are many alternatives, opting for locally grown crops is the way to go. Avocados come loaded with health benefits and hence it is important to include them in your daily diet. However, considering the long term impact of the production on the planet, one should also make efforts towards making it more sustainable for the generations to come.