Your avocado purchases make a difference! During the 2023-2024 avocado season, First Alternative Co-op customers purchased 24,857 Equal Exchange avocados, which equals $18,418 paid directly to small-scale avocado farmers in Mexico. Plus, an additional $626 is paid as a social premium towards providing necessary supplies to local homes and childcare centers and supporting projects to generate organic soil inputs.
First Alternative Co-op is a proud to sell avocados from Equal Exchange’s Fairtrade avocado program, which helps to ensure that the small farms and farmers growing the avocados we all enjoy are paid fairly. The program works with 71 small-scale avocado farmers in Michoacán, Mexico who supply avocados to 475 food co-ops and grocery stores. As Equal Exchange explains it:
“As the avocado industry has taken off, growing at a massive rate, systems of coercion and corporate control have threatened the livelihood of small-scale avocado farmers. For this reason, Equal Exchange launched a Fairtrade, small-scale farmer program for Mexican avocados in 2013, to establish a market for small-scale farmers and their produce in the precarious arena of the avocado market. Over the years, the U.S. market for Mexican avocados has grown tremendously, and Equal Exchange and its partners have worked to ensure that small farmer grown avocados continue to have a share.”
Curious to learn more about some of the avocado suppliers that are a part of this program? Visit Equal Exchange’s resource page! On behalf of Equal Exchange and First Alternative Co-op, thank you for supporting a equitable food system!
