“Meat is murder” has been a pro-animal rights slogan since the 80s. When the Smiths first released their iconic slogan, they couldn’t have envisioned the life the term would take on. Since then, PETA and many other rights groups have taken it as a crusade against mainstream meat-eating. While many (not all) vegans make the switch to support animal rights or the environment, few consider the human cost of their eating habits. Produce like avocados and quinoa have become staples of the vegan diet.

The problem is that while the mass production of meat is labor-intensive and environmentally harmful, the mass production of these vegetables is no different. This is especially an issue in the cultivation, shipping, and mass consumption of the avocado. 

Avocados are labor and water-intensive fruits. Recently, as the popularity of Latinx food and avocado-based cuisine has erupted in the West, the pressure on farmers has become overwhelming. Green gold - as it has come to be known, is slowly destroying the ecological equilibrium of Latin America’s once vibrant and diverse farmlands.

According to UNFAO stats, avocado is officially grown in 71 countries for export, trade, and mass consumption. Its top ten producers are almost entirely located in the Americas, but none has suffered more than the world’s third largest exporter of the fruit - Chile. 

For the past ten years, central Chile has been experiencing a megadrought. The worst of its kind in 1,000 years. Rainfall has severely decreased, particularly in the areas that surround the metropolitan city of Santiago. In 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that over 50 municipalities are official “agricultural emergencies.” To add to this new state of emergency, El Yeso, a major water reserve that serves Santiago and the surrounding areas, is experiencing an unforeseen strain. All of this comes as Chile is emerging as a global agricultural powerhouse.  

In Petorca, a city just three hours outside of the capital sits the “gold mine” that is Chile’s avocado farms. One would think that these farmers should be reaping at least some of the profits of their lucrative cultivation. But the opposite is happening. 

The boom in demand for the fruit has sucked the region dry - both figuratively and literally. All the water from the quickly drying water source is spent on growing avocados that the Chilean people almost certainly will not consume. This is the result of just a decade of big avocado companies descending on the Valiproso region. 

The companies swarmed in and have not only taken much of the labor that small and more environmentally conscious local farmers but their very life source. The water crisis has been the leading cause of migration in the region. More and more families have been forced out of their homes, communities, and cities because there is no water. The town of Petorca and its surrounding area have become uninhabitable. 

At the core of the issue is water rights. This crisis actually began back in the 80s when huge avocado plantations began to crop up on the foothills of the Andes on the fringes of smaller farms in the valleys of Petorca. Under the Pinochet dictatorship, in a time when neoliberalism was sweeping over much of the continent of Latin America, water rights were privatized. These firms came in at just the right time and they bought the water rights when they bought the land. 

Since then the overwhelming abuse of the once ample river has caused many farmers to give up their land to these huge plantations and move out of the area. The rivers now run dry, water is more expensive than ever, and the locals are suffering. 

The people of Petorca, have been crying out for the government to cease the exportation of these avocados. Many view their exportation is the theft of the little water that is still available. These concerns have been in the background of Chilean politics for years, but the issue cannot possibly be ignored any longer.

The avocado market has exasperated the drought. While civilians are forced to drink water from tanks that make regular deliveries to the most affected regions, big mono-crop farms get to abuse the safer water sources even further. The issue has already created hundreds of internally displaced climate refugees, and as the strain on the water supply continues, this number will only grow. 

Small farmers have two options; continue to suffer from the harshest effects of the drought, impending widespread poverty, and dwindling government support, or move. Many are making their choice, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of the nation. As more people have to flood metropolitan areas like Santiago, the strain on basins like El Yeso will only increase. 

Avocado production needs to be heavily regulated, but there is still a more significant global food production problem. This drought is being caused, at least in part, by a natural cycle that would take place with or without the Chilean people. Still, it would have never been this dramatic or destructive if it weren’t for the agricultural industry’s large-scale monocropping agrarian firms that have come to coopt food production in much of the global south. 

The issue expands far beyond Chilean avocados or even avocado production. The fact that a trend in a country over 4 km away can result in the worst drought in 1,000 years is terrifying. That should make us rethink how we consume. 

A culture of year-round seasonal fruit and exotic cuisine is killing entire ecosystems and industries. 

Many people are vegan or vegetarian with the best intentions and with great concern for the environment, climate change, and the farmers on the other end of the production chain. But if we genuinely want to help farmers in the global south, we need to pivot away from our current consumption habits. 

Avocados are murderous, not because they are born of any animal’s flesh, but because their mass production erodes the very ecological system that made their production possible. All over the world, small farmers are being pushed out of their usual farmlands; some are even forced to give up the trade entirely because of big agricultural firms. Ones that have little if any concern for the environments they destroy. 

The unspoken cost of our comfort is all too real to the people of Chile - to farmers all over the global south. 

As the people in towns like Petorca and the rural areas of Valiproso continue to wrestle with the erosion of their way of life, the onus is on us to make a change. We need to do more than simply be vegan or vegetarian; we need to eat local and consider more seriously the food miles that accompany our favorite dishes. 

Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley