Are Avocados Bad For The Environment?

In the past several decades avocados have become a worldfamous superfood that can be incorporated into hundreds of different recipes. Avocados have become so popular in fact that their status as a cash crop has earned them the name green gold. Unfortunately the worlds growing infatuation with them means that the environmental impact of avocados is becoming increasingly more problematic.
Why avocados?
Avocados are a delicious versatile ingredient in cuisine. They are also considered a nutritional powerhouse full of essential vitamins minerals and good fats. According to Medical News Today avocados can improve digestion lower bad cholesterol and even decrease the risk of depression.

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.
In the U S. avocados are currently grown in California Florida and Hawaii but the majority of them are grown abroad in places like Peru the Dominican Republic Kenya Columbia and Brazil. The worlds largest producer of avocados is Mexico according to Statista.
What is the environmental impact of avocados?
Unfortunately the avocados popularity almost guarantees that it has become something of a monoculture in some places. Like sugar coffee palm oil and corn avocados are a commodity. That means that large swaths of agricultural land arent being used to grow anything but avocados.
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.
Plantationfarmed 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.
Avocados use a ton of water.
The avocados biggest problem is the