An avocado is more to me than a simple fruit. It's a trip to Guatemala. It's a trip to a cloud forest. It's a hike to an avocado farm. It's learning the difference between sustainable and unsustainable avocado tree farming. It is seeing a 100+ year old avocado tree stump with a few baby Hass trees grafted on to it, like little aliens feeding off a soon-to-be-dead host body. It's seeing hundreds of 100+ year old avocado tree stumps with their grafted on, alien wards on a clear cut mountainside. A mountside that is now prone to mudslides, erosion, less biodiversity, and general wear of unsustainable farming practices. It's knowing that once Guatemala had 75+ TYPES OF AVOCADO TREES growing all over the country. It's knowing that currently, there are probably only around 5 TYPES grown there. It's realizing that consumption and money is the only thing driving who grows what, where, and HOW for avocados. But probably for ALL FOOD.
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| https://mobiustravels.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/antigua-and-lake-atitlan/, see below for more info |
The alien tree babies are just that - unsustainable time and resource suckers. Those 100+ year old tree stumps...those trees WERE DESIGNED by evolution to live, work, produce, and reproduce all on their own for thousands of years. And not just to live but to THRIVE and PRESERVERE in adversity in their environments. A hardiness and history bred into each successive generation of avocado tree. A hardiness being lost as each unique variety of avocado slowly diminshes in numbers or the last tree dies. With each avocado I buy, I picture one more of these highly sophisticated, well designed beings, older than I will ever make it to be, being cut down. I picture one less Guatemalan small farmer working her land for a unique variety of avocado and instead, replanting with alien Hass babies. I picture one more Guatemalan farm family losing another tie to the history of their land and what worked there for centuries. I picture one more Guatemalan farm child learning more about a place, a people, and capitalism for a country hundreds of miles away from their own. A place they may never visit, but may unknowingly with each sequential clear cutting, with every new Hass avocado farm being planted, may be remaking their country to resemble more and more in physical and economic aspects.
Everything is so connected. Everything we do has a cost. Everything.
For more information:
iMap
Avocado consumption data
Types of avocados and their parentage
*** about the photo - I was cutting corners to publish this quickly and did a google search for a photo to use instead of hunting for mine from my trip. The first result was this photo and it is very auspicious that I found this particular photo as it is from the Lake Atitlan area. The lake area is EXACTLY where I was and where some very unsustainable avocado farms are, but it is also home to iMap. iMap is a small, grassroots organization my group worked with to learn about MesoAmerican permaculture farming methods - methods that are ancient, sustainable, and part of this land and culture. to have been at iMap, to have looked literally next door at the exact opposite type of situation, was so...so.....I DONT KNOW! I still dont have the words or the ability to fully live and express what I feel and learned and valued from that trip to my present life. That piece frustrates me to no end.
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