Avocado Farming - Exploiting Africa’s New Cash Crop
Avocado farming is rapidly gaining popularity on the African continent, many people across the continent now refer to it as Africa’s new “green gold”.
Due to high global demand, the avocado has become a lucrative export product, its consumption per capita increased by 406% between 1990 and 2017 in the US alone and about 6 million tonnes of the Avocado fruit was produced in 2017.
The Avocado tree has a lifespan of about 50 years and one tree can produce up to 130kg of Avocado per time.
In East Africa, export revenues surged by a third between 2019 and 2020 and farmers have continued to hail the crop as an antidote to poverty in rural areas of the African continent.
Both Nigeria and Uganda aim to drastically increase their avocado production and become top exporters in the next decade. Kenya is already among the global top 10 exporters.
Is Avocado Truly Africa’s Green Gold?
Avocados have recently been making negative headlines around the world due to water shortage and the destruction of biodiversity in many avocado-producing countries, especially in Latin America.
This water shortage and environmental issues have shrunk the commercial farming of avocado in Latin America’s top exporting countries like Mexico and Chile.
In Africa, however, avocado farming has a promising future. Due to emphasis on smallholders and beneficial rain patterns on the African continent, the crop’s production is expected to be less environmentally harmful than on the American continent.
Avocados may have originated from South America but it is Africa that is now cashing in on the World’s love for avocados.
African Avocado exporters ride on the fineness of the African avocado by World standards because it is a combination of local and international varieties.
According to the Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria, in 2020, former President Olusegun Obasanjo described avocado as “the new oil of Nigeria” during a meeting with the members of the Avocado Society of Nigeria.
The former president is the largest stakeholder in the society and cultivates 20 hectares of Hass avocado — the avocado variety commonly used for exports.
In other African countries, farmers have abandoned other crops like early vegetables to invest in avocado. The avocado fruit has witnessed a rapid increase in domestic demand with good prospects for export development.
Avocado production has proved to be one of the most successful crops in the past decade. Production increased by 85.2% between 2008 and 2018.
In Africa, the top avocado producers are Kenya (accounts for 28% of the total African production), Rwanda (20%), South Africa (14%), and Cameroon (8%).
In 2017, Kenya overtook South Africa as Africa’s largest exporter and now Avocados make up 17% of Kenya’s Horticultural exports (source: International Trade Center)
Economic Value of Avocado
Avocado can be used as an alternative to coffee farming and as such farmers are jumping on it. In recent years, there has been fierce competition between coffee farming and avocado farming in Africa and this has caused the price of coffee to drastically reduce.
In 2019, the income of farmers dropped to its lowest in 13 years but now hopes are high for avocado to fill in the income gap.
In Uganda, the Ministry of Agriculture has partnered with the Musubi farm with hopes of starting commercial export in 2022.
With Africa having a constant supply of adequate rainfall and with smallholder farming in place meaning less strain on the environment, Avocado farming is set to become Africa’s next cash cow.