(New York, February 6, 2025) – Leading avocado suppliers have joined a new certification program aimed at curbing avocado-driven deforestation in Mexico, Climate Rights International said today.
On February 7, Michoacán Governor Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla will present the first certifications to companies participating in the state’s “Pro-Forest Avocado” program, which requires that packinghouses end sourcing of avocados from orchards on recently deforested lands. The companies include major suppliers to the U.S. market, such as Calavo Growers, Mission Produce, and West Pak Avocado.
In a further important development, last week the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a plan for a certification requirement at the federal level, first for avocados and then for other agricultural products.
“The decision by leading avocado companies to stop sourcing from recently cleared orchards is a major breakthrough for efforts to halt avocado-driven deforestation in Mexico,” said Daniel Wilkinson, Senior Policy Advisor at Climate Rights International. “Reducing the economic incentive for deforestation will be a big relief for local communities who have suffered threats and violence for opposing illegal deforestation by some avocado producers. It also paves the way for the implementation of a federal certification program that will require deforestation-free supply chains throughout the country.”
Increasing U.S. demand for avocados has fueled widespread destruction of forestland in the Mexican states of Michoacán and Jalisco, which produce 90 percent of the avocados sold in the United States. This demand will likely remain strong even if the tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump are eventually imposed on Mexican imports.
A 2023 report by Climate Rights International, “Unholy Guacamole: Deforestation, Water Capture, and Violence Behind Mexico’s Avocado Exports to the U.S. and Other Major Markets,” documented the heavy toll that avocado-driven deforestation has taken on the environment and on local populations in Mexico. Indigenous Purépecha communities and other local residents have mobilized to defend the forests, but they have been thwarted by violence and intimidation, which they attribute in many instances to organized crime groups that dominate the region and have multiple links to parts of the avocado industry. “If you point the finger or talk, they’ll kill you,” said one Indigenous leader from Michoacán.
An August 2024 study by Climate Rights International and the Mexican NGO Guardian Forestal revealed that Calavo Growers, Mission Produce, and West Pak Avocado—and a fourth U.S.-based company, Fresh Del Monte Produce—had continued sourcing avocados from orchards on illegally deforested lands and selling to major supermarket chains throughout the United States.
Michoacán’s “Pro-Forest Avocado” program requires packinghouses to use the Forest Guardian Monitoring System— the online platform managed by Guardian Forestal—to vet all their potential suppliers and eliminate those whose orchards contain lands cleared since 2018. The program is voluntary, and its ability to reduce or eliminate the market incentive for avocado-driven deforestation will require broad participation across the industry. Fresh Del Monte Produce and other packinghouses in Michoacán have yet to seek certification.
“Unholy Guacamole” showed that supermarket chains such as Albertsons, Costco, Kroger, Target, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, and Whole Foods had sourced from packinghouses whose supply chains included recently deforested orchards. Some supermarkets have since played a valuable behind-the-scenes role in urging avocado companies to end their sourcing from recently deforested land, while others have taken no steps to change their sourcing or oversee their avocado supply chains to guard against deforestation.
In letters sent to supermarkets this week, Climate Rights International urged them to source avocados only from certified suppliers and use the Forest Guardian Monitoring System, for which Climate Rights International provides technical support, to ensure their supply chains are free of recent deforestation.
“The improved sourcing by the certified suppliers is a major step forward, but for the Michoacán initiative to ultimately succeed, it will be necessary for other packinghouses to join them as well,” Wilkinson said. “U.S. supermarkets could play a critical role in making that happen by committing to buying only from suppliers that have been certified.”
