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The avocado harvest in the Axarquía, the area to the east of Malaga province, where there are some 8,000 hectares of avocado plantations, began in November 2024 with the Bacon and Fuerte varieties, with smooth skin, and the first batches of Hass, the main variety, which is harvested mainly from December onwards.
However, the extreme drought that has hit the area for the last five years, which has not abated despite the abundant rains of last autumn, is going to cause a new historic drop in this year's harvest.
This decline in the country's main subtropical fruit area is going to be compensated by increases in other areas such as Cadiz, Huelva and Valencia. The avocado is in fashion with a sustained increase in demand, which has been on the rise for several years now, as shown by the main national and international consumption observatories which maintain this trend in their medium and long-term projections.
In this context, last December saw the start of the 2024/25 Spanish avocado season, a season in which the Spanish tropical fruit association (AET) the most important organisation in the sector with more than half a thousand producer members throughout Spain, is forecasting a harvest in excess of 70,000 tonnes, which represents up to 20 per cent more than the previous season.
The AET also pointed to a significant improvement in the pioneering production areas of the Spanish tropical fruit, associated with the Axarquía area of Malaga province and the Costa Tropical in Granada province. These two neighbouring areas continue to experience one of the most complicated periods of recent decades due to the harsh weather conditions, the lack of water and the complications arising from the increase in production costs, leading to many trees being felled.
"This year we can speak of a lukewarm improvement and, above all, of a slightly more optimistic outlook thanks to the rains brought by spring and the start of autumn and the slight increase in water reserves," said Álvaro Palacios, president of the AET, in a statement. Palacios went o n to say, "Nevertheless, the water situation, which is key to the survival of agriculture in these areas, is still bad and we cannot relax our demands to the administrations for the implementation of the desalination plants, connection of waste water treatment plants and construction of complexes to make better use of rainwater, among other measures that we never tire of demanding time and time again and on which our future depends."
Spanish avocado production, in which the Hass will once again be the star on the markets and in which the demand for organic cultivation continues, is on the rise, largely propelled by the positive data from the new growing areas in the western provinces of Andalucía, an area in clear expansion, especially in certain areas of the provinces of Cadiz and Huelva, where the 2024/25 harvest looks "promising". Valencia is also positioning itself as one of the major production centres on the Spanish mainland. The Canary Islands region is expected to maintain similar figures to previous years, although it is being affected by extreme climatic events, as is happening in the eastern part of Andalucía.
"These are production areas with great potential. In all of them, AET has had members for a long time, but especially in recent years. These are committed producers who give us their feedback and for the same reason, in the last renewal of the board of directors, we wanted to include some of them so that they also have a voice in our organisation," said the head of the association.
The price at source will be one of the big issues this year, as it will not only be determined by the greater amount of fruit available, but also because of avocados arriving from other destinations, especially Morocco, where the crop forecast is high, up to 90,000 tonnes, according to the north African country.
In this sense, Palacios encouraged consumers, "who are the ones who have the ultimate decision on consumption in their hands", to choose the 100 per cent Spanish avocado. "We are not only talking about price and supporting the local producer, who is after all a committed entrepreneur who puts enthusiasm, desire and risk in order to produce a quality product; but it is also a decision in line with good agricultural practices, with the reduction of the carbon footprint, with local products, and with the reinforcement of the circular economy, which is what drives growth in the towns and regions that depend on agriculture."
The head of the AET also took the opportunity to call for the unification of the Spanish avocado under the same brand, 'Avocado from Spain', "because only with the union of producers from all the regions and homogeneous marketing guidelines can we face the challenge of the fruit that arrives from other destinations. Unity is strength. There is no doubt about this", he added.
In recent years, the number of farms choosing grow organic avocados and use regenerative practices has increased, in line with consumer trends. Overall, the area under avocado cultivation is now close to 20,000 hectares in the country. Of these, around 14,000 are in Andalucía, 3,000 in Valencia and 2,500 in the Canary Islands as the main growing areas.
The AET hopes that in 2025 some of the water infrastructure projects that have been pending for decades in the Axarquía and the Costa Tropical in Granada, which are still the areas most affected by changes in the climate, will "finally" get under way.
On the technical side, AET will continue to organise specific technical conferences on topics of interest to its members, in collaboration with institutions such as IFAPA and the IHSM La Mayora in Algarrobo. The plan is to hold the first one in February in Vélez-Málaga and the next one in the Guadalhorce Valley, another of Malaga's major production areas.
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