Are Avocados Bad For The Environment?

amount of water it consumes. According to Youmatter avocado plantations put an incredible degree of pressure on a regions 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 thats about 3800 Olympic poolsworth 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 lifegiving water they need to survive. The cost to transport avocados is fairly high in terms of environmental impact as well. Truckloads of these soughtafter berries yes avocados are technically berries pump huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere as they wend their way across the world.
How are avocados grown?
According to Love One Today every avocados life begins with pollination. Mature avocado trees can produce a million flowers in each bloom but only about 150 to 500 of those pollinated blossoms will become fullygrown

 avocados within the year. As a result bees play a key role in the avocado growing process.
Once the avocados have matured they are picked carefully by hand to avoid any unnecessary bruising. From there the shipping process is quick and cold. Avocados ripen in warmer temperatures so they begin the packing process in pools of cold water. This ensures that the avocados are washed and that their temperature is low enough to travel. The avocados are packed in boxes and loaded into refrigerated trucks. Most avocados arrive at their final destination between two and four days later.

Are avocados bad for the environment?
Like so many monocultures before it the avocados popularity has led it to become an unsustainable commodity. That said despite avocados fairly high environmental footprint from its water use growing process and shipping process the avocado
still has a far lower environmental impact than animal products so swapping your morning eggs for avocado toast is a positive choice for the planet.
In order to fix the avocado we need to start growing less of them. Unfortunately slowing production means slowing demand and it doesnt seem as if the avocado is going to be losing any popularity contests these days.