Tons of second-rate avocados left to rot in a landfill due to oversupply and too high costs of packaging and transport
Tons of avocados dumped and left to rot on the ground. It happens in northern Queensland, Australia, where farmers are forced to discard second-rate fruit due to high transport and packaging costs and oversupply. The complaint comes from Jan De Lai, a woman who photographed and then posted on Facebook, the avocados spilled on the ground. A gruesome scene showing mountains of food waste.
Avocado is a very nutritious fruit but its cultivation poses a threat: they devour water, thirst the population and invade the landscape. For this reason, seeing this show is doubly painful.
What's going on? Probably without social media, this complaint would never have arrived. But a woman noticed that at the Atherton landfill in far north Queensland, farmers were forced to throw away avocados due to an over-supply of fruit and rising transport and packaging costs.
“Trucks loaded with avocados are unloaded in Atherton! Surely they could be used for animal fodder or used to make oil? " the woman had written on Facebook.
The post was picked up by several international news outlets and sparked concern among avocado growers forced to compete with international sellers. The president of Avocado Australia, Jim Kochi, also intervened, confirming that the fruits have been abandoned for the reasons already listed. In the first place remains the fact that oversupply is a problem.
“We are back to where we were 20 years ago. There has been a lot of competition between growers and chains, so the price has dropped, we are talking about fruit for one dollar when it would normally be selling for 2, even 3 dollars. We are back to where we were 20 years ago, explains the president.
While images of avocados left to rot raise concern over food waste, farmers argue that the high supply makes processing inferior fruit more difficult. But not only.
Normally, low-quality avocados, like the ones pictured, would end up in a processing plant and turn into guacamole or other products, including cosmetic products, such as face masks. However, the president explains that the plants are full and that it is impossible, given the costs of transport and packaging, to move the fruit elsewhere.
"It's not worth it. Our packaging and transport costs have almost doubled. The only solution is that they turn into compost ”, Jim Kochi comments.
But on social media the protest arises: "This is simply madness!".
Fonte: Jan De Lai/Facebook The Guardian
Could it be interesting for you:
- Can avocado be frozen? All the tricks to do it correctly
- Avocado: what is the story of the US blockade on imports from Mexico (and what it implies)
- How the avocado plantations in Colombia are seriously endangering the local fauna
