Avocados

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Seniors like me are often advised to have more fruits in our diet for better health. The fruit that keeps getting top billing is the avocado and for good reasons.

Avocados are nutrient-dense superfoods. Regular consumption supports heart health by lowering “bad” LDL cholesterol, boosts eye health with antioxidants like lutein, improves digestion and aids in weight management by promoting satiety.

Older individuals who eat avocado or guacamole were found by a study to have significantly greater cognitive scores. Avocado consumption significantly improved memory performance, the first area to decline in individuals with age-related neurodegenerative diseases.

.When I spent six months with my daughter in Colorado during the pandemic lockdown, I always included avocados for breakfast. But it was not cheap. One rather small avocado sold for a dollar in supermarkets.

Back here at home, it isn’t easy to find avocados in our supermarkets. And if you find some, most are not so good… unripe and don’t ripen well.

And it is expensive.

Joey Salceda also has the same experience with avocados here.

“If you’ve tried to buy avocados lately, you already know. They’re either gone or going for P200 to P500 per kilo. My doctor recommended them for my health. I’ve been looking. It’s been a scavenger hunt. I investigated the issue deeper…

“Those avocados used to go to your palengke or supermarket. Now they’re going to Tokyo.

“In November 2024, the Philippines finally cracked Japan’s avocado market after 13 years of negotiations. The first shipment of Hass avocados left Mindanao: 2,240 boxes, $40,000. We’re now targeting 484,000 kilos in exports this year, worth $1.6 million.

“The Philippines became the first Asian country to send Hass avocados to Japan, entering a market worth $160 million annually.”

If the government truly wants our farmers to make money, they should be encouraged to cultivate high value crops. I first heard of HVCs from the late Sen. Ed Angara when he sponsored a bill that called for the Department of Agriculture to put more attention to the cultivation of these HVCs.

HVCs include bananas, avocados, pineapples, mangoes, cacao, coffee, durian, asparagus, okra, etc. HVCs have ready export markets.

While historically avocados received less attention than mangoes or bananas, the government has recently ramped up support to position the Philippines as a global exporter, specifically for the Hass avocado variety.

In Mindanao, the Mindanao Development Authority has facilitated partnerships between local farmers and private firms like Dole Philippines to provide technical assistance and a guaranteed market through marketing agreements.

The primary destinations for Philippine avocados include China, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. In September 2023, there was an initial shipment of 3,040 boxes valued at $48,433 (P2.74 million). Not much but it is a start.

And as Salceda reported, the government is aggressively expanding its footprint in the Japanese market, which is a major global importer of the Hass variety.

Mindanao is the current powerhouse for export-grade Hass avocados, largely because its high-elevation regions provide the cool tropical climate necessary for this specific variety to thrive.

Our climate is generally not kind to avocados, Salceda observed.

“Each fruit needs about 320 liters of water to grow. That’s four times what an orange requires. In a warming world with the worst droughts, avocados are increasingly difficult to produce at scale.”

A 2024 report projected that up to 41 percent of the world’s avocado-growing areas could become unsuitable by 2050. Mexico’s Michoacán, which supplies much of global demand, could lose 60 percent of its production capacity. Peru and Chile are facing similar trouble.

So, the world’s avocado supply is tightening just as we’ve proven we can produce export-quality fruit. There’s an opportunity here, if we keep alert, Salceda observed.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the country exported $7.44 billion worth of agro-based products last year, up by 25 percent from $5.96 billion in 2024.

And expansion must be done carefully. In Mexico and Chile, avocado money brought deforestation and water wars. We should learn from that, not repeat it, Salceda warned.

Export markets are making it difficult for me to have avocados for breakfast. But, if we can expand avocado production with market development support, we should be able to balance domestic needs and the lucrative export market.

Being Frank

Among the politicians I have covered over the past 60 years, Frank Drilon is perhaps the most prepared to be president but never made it. He was senate president twice, and was labor secretary, justice secretary and executive secretary.

I first got to work with Frank during our UP days when he was associate editor of the Collegian and I was editing news. On our regular Tuesday press nights at the Liwayway Press on Rizal Avenue, he and our editor-in-chief, Miriam Defensor, would arrive at about 2 a.m.

Miriam will look over our work, give her approval and we all go to a panciteria on Florentino Torres for our pre-dawn feast of mami and siopao.

Frank has always been accessible after he became a public official and even after. He patiently explained nuances of public policies.

Frank is launching his memoirs on Monday at the Manila Polo Club. “Being Frank” brings us the inside stories of his time in public service, including when his house in Greenhills was bombed during one of the coups against Tita Cory.

Incidentally, Iloilo bloomed because Frank made sure the river was cleaned and that  the esplanade and a number of highways and the current airport were built. No ghost projects there for DPWH because Frank was in Iloilo every other weekend checking on the progress.

I can’t help thinking Frank had been more qualified to be president than those he had served and those who came later like Duterte and BBM. In a parliamentary system, the country might have been able to benefit from his wisdom, training and experience as prime minister.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco