At the end of my everyday morning walk from two years back up to now, I used to enter Morton-William as finishing touch to pick up some bread or vegetable. I noticed avocado, banana, and zucchini are very cheap compared to other items.3/4 and sometimes 5 avocados for $1.I did not like avocado until I tasted a sandwich with avocado spread with a pinch of salt and pepper in some Jewish Party. It is popular as "butter fruit" in Mexican locality It is also the backbone of the local economy known as "green-gold" in Mexico to fetch money by exporting in a foreign land, especially in the US. I learnt that it is good for health. Since then I used to buy it; good for breakfast, both as a spread on bread instead of butter or as smoothy.
I was surprised to notice the sudden rise in price: $3 for one avocado. I told my daughter, "see, just as we started liking zucchini and avocado, their price goes up."
I learnt avocados come mostly from Mexico and Colombia. It had been cultivated in Mexico about 9000 years ago. Food magazines have made these items popular by propagating their food value so high that it became the fruit of global trade... As the demand goes up,price naturally rises...
But the story is something more. Avocados grow mainly in the volcanic rich soil of Michoacan state in Mexico. The high global demand for avocado has created a mafia group who plundered all avocados from the land of the farmers at night time. The farmers have to buy insurance to protect against the robberies which caused the prices to go up. Thus the mafia group now control the avocado business....
"Avocados are Nafta's(North American Free Trade Agreement) shining stars," said some economist.
... So the behavioural-psychology-cum-geo- economics etc. have been more complicated by the influence of the criminal bugs; high price is not due to a simple matter of the previously known theory of the demand-supply relationship of the see-saw.
Every time I toss the idea whether should I buy or not as I look at the price-tag of an avocado: a dark green, pear-shaped fruit, simple(but ugly and repulsive to look), too, trails a stained history! though it is neither gold nor diamond nor drug, still.......
' et too, avocado!'
You were fine so far,
In the lap of the volcanic father,
Throughout more than a thousand years;
Sheltered safely in shady leaves
And feeding the son of the soil.
Soon you will be invisible there,
As NAFTA blew your veil
In the open global market
To fill a global appetite.
*********************
