Illegal deforestation. Water pollution and depletion. Worker abuse and extortion — even murder. These are some of the externalized impacts of Americans’ appetite for avocados, one of the world’s most loved, valuable, and — increasingly — controversial fruits.
Demand nationally has soared over the past 20 years, yet the United States’ production has dipped. Instead, avocado farming has ramped up in southwest Mexico, where drug cartels have sought to control the industry, collect profits, and brutally punish those who resist.
Attuned to the escalating conflict, and with an eye on climate change trajectories, scattered Bay Area activists, planners, and urban farmers want Californians to rinse their hands of these atrocities and increase local resilience by growing their own avocados. They hope to drive an agri-urban infill revolution through which lush fruit-bearing canopies spread over community gardens, public parks, schoolyards, sidewalks, and, ideally, most private properties…