News
Dina Rickman
May 20, 2015
Panic stricken about the world avocado shortage due to a drought in California?
Although there are legitimate concerns about shortfalls of the fruit, the world's source of guacamole is safe for now.
Britain's leading supermarkets do not depend on America when sourcing their avocados, with a spokesperson for Sainsbury's reassuring i100.co.uk: "We don’t source our avocados from California." Tony Baines, of Aldi corporate buying, added the supermarket was not "directly affected".
While the drought in California, which grows 15 per cent of the avocados consumed in America, is real there is not yet a shortage. Jan DeLyser of the California Avocado Commission has said the harvest this year is nearly 10 per cent higher due to farmers being "prudent" with water supplies.
That does not mean there's nothing to worry about. As Louise Manning, senior lecturer at Royal Agricultural University, told i100.co.uk: "There are great concerns about resilience in the long term in the food supply chain especially with regard to weather patterns causing drought in the irrigated food producing regions of the world.
"Lack of rainfall in California is impacting on a number of crops and there are some stark decisions to be made there on who gets the water - the farmers for food production or the towns and cities to support the populations."
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