US Agricultural Imports Exceed Exports for 1st Time

The US Department of Agriculture reported that imports exceed exports for the first time in history, according to CNBC.

Data showed that avocado consumption has more than tripled within American society since 2001, and has become widespread almost everywhere, as it is served in fast food outlets and luxury restaurants alike as demand grows.

The seeds of this growth are firmly planted in Mexico, not within the United States.

The USDA reports that about 90% of all avocados eaten in the United States come from Mexico, with imports totaling about $2.7 billion by 2024.

American production is concentrated in California, which accounts for about 90% of domestic production, according to the California Avocado Commission. Hawaii and Florida make up the rest. But California's industry meets only a fraction of the massive demand.

“We are now just a very small player in the big picture,” said Mary Lou Arpaia, a subtropical horticulturist at the University of California, Riverside.

Avocado production in California peaked in the early 2000s and has declined in both production area and yield since then, according to the California Agriculture Center.

“The cost of production here in California is very high, and we have resource constraints in terms of water availability and quality. ... Real estate is very expensive,” Arpaia said.

The problem is not unique to avocados: agricultural production in the United States as a whole has been shrinking.

“Mexico will always be an efficient, low-cost producer,” said Richard Sexton, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis.

More than 80% of Mexican avocado exports go to the United States, and the industry is still growing. In 2022, Jalisco became the second Mexican state to meet certain requirements that allow it to trade avocados with the United States, opening up more opportunities for other farms and additional fruit to flood the market.