Holy Guacamole!

From the ground to your guac, producing an avocado takes an astonishing amount of effort, time, and labor (not to mention water!).

Americans’ demand for avocados has grown at an astonishing rate over the past two decades, and for good reason. Not only is the fruit (yes, it’s a fruit, not a vegetable) incredibly tasty, it’s also incredibly good for you; the avocado is characterized as a “super food” because of its high nutritional value compared to its calorie count. Eating them regularly may even reduce your risk of chronic disease.

It’s no wonder, then, that global consumption of avocados has more than doubled since 1993, and American demand has tripled in that same period. So where are all these avocados coming from? And how do they get from wherever “there” is to your burrito? Let’s take a look.

The Farm

Every year, 5,000 California growers produce about 90% of the United States’s avocado crop. These farmers are located primarily along the coast of central and southern California, where the climate is ideal and allows for year-round harvesting, although peak season is between April and September.

The 640 million avocados that come from the state all start in the same place: the ground. In fact, every single Hass avocado — the most popular variety in America, accounting for 95% of the crop volume — can be traced back to a single “Hass Mother Tree,” planted in 1926. New sproutlets are often grafted, so several trees can stem from a single seed, resulting in higher density production. But it will take three to five years before the tree starts to produce fruit, and even then, it takes another year to 18 months for an avocado to fully develop. At this point, however, the trees have become downright prolific in their output, each producing an average of 52 pounds of fruit in a season (that’s about 150 individual avocados).

But generating so many “Alligator Pears,” as they’re also called, requires a tremendous amount of water -- around 74 gallons for a single pound of produce. The record-breaking drought in California has experts understandably concerned over a possible avocado shortage in the near future.