Mexico's Michoacan state launches avocado certification aimed at curbing deforestation

By Cassandra Garrison

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Michoacan state, Mexico's avocado heartland, launched a certification program on Wednesday aimed at helping consumers in the United States and other countries avoid those grown on illegally logged land.

The stamp of approval will go to avocados that are grown where orchards are allowed and where the land has not been cleared illegally since 2018 or had a forest fire since 2012.

Avocado exports to the United States, the largest consumer of Mexican avocados, have soared 48% since 2019 and were worth $3 billion last year, according to U.S. trade data.

Demand for the fruit has contributed to the deforestation of up to 70,000 acres in the west-central Mexican states of Michoacan and Jalisco in the last decade, data from Guardian Forestal and Climate Rights International showed.

"We want to ensure that the consumer ... has the certainty that it is an avocado free of environmental cruelty," Michoacan's Secretary of Environment Alejandro Mendez said at a news conference.

The program automatically files complaints to the state's attorney general when, based on satellite images, it identifies avocado orchards that do not comply with the certification requirements, officials said.

The state government cannot block orchards on illegally deforested land from exporting to the U.S. The program, however, offers transparency to U.S. companies and consumers about where and how their avocados are sourced, officials said.

"This is a very welcome initiative by the Michoacan government, but its impact will ultimately depend on whether companies choose to use it," said Daniel Wilkinson, Climate Rights International's senior adviser.

Activists have previously estimated that thousands of illegally deforested avocado orchards would likely go undetected by the program.

(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)