The Green Gold: Transforming Avocado into Opportunity for Farmers
1. The Foundation: Addressing Farm-Level Challenges
For generations, smallholder farmers have been at the heart of our agricultural communities, working the land to provide food for their families and income for their households. Yet, beyond production itself, farmers face a number of challenges; from declining soil fertility and soil erosion to changing climatic conditions, limited access to suitable crop varieties, and, importantly, a lack of reliable markets for their produce.
Our journey with farmers began with a broader vision: to promote farming practices that protect the environment while creating sustainable social and economic opportunities for farming communities.
Through our engagement with farmers, we introduced and promoted practices aimed at protecting the soil, reducing erosion, improving soil fertility, and encouraging more sustainable land management. We also supported the introduction of new and diversified crop varieties that could provide farmers with additional sources of food and income while making better use of their land.
As our relationship with farming communities grew, so did our understanding of the opportunities and challenges they faced.
2. Discovering the Potential of Avocado
One of the opportunities that stood out was avocado — the “Green Gold.”
Avocado was already thriving in many of the communities where we worked. Farmers had planted the trees, the climate and growing conditions were favourable, and production was steadily increasing. However, there was a major gap: there was not always a reliable and structured market for the fruit.
Farmers could invest months and years in nurturing their avocado trees, only to face uncertainty when the fruit was ready for harvest. Without dependable market access, the economic potential of the crop remained largely untapped.
We therefore saw an opportunity not simply to promote another crop, but to connect an existing farming strength with new market opportunities.
Our approach was clear: if avocado was already growing successfully, how could we help create a market that would allow farmers to benefit from it?
3. Building Market Connections
Recognising the potential of the avocado sector, we became willing to work with partners who shared the same interest in supporting local farmers and creating sustainable agricultural value chains.
We began looking for buyers and market opportunities, both within the local market and internationally. The objective was to build connections between farmers and markets while developing a more organised and reliable pathway for avocado from the farm to the final buyer.
This required more than simply finding buyers. It involved working with farmers to strengthen production practices, improve quality, coordinate harvesting, facilitate collection, and ensure that the fruit could meet the requirements of different markets.
In this way, avocado became more than just a crop on the farm. It became a link between farmers, markets, businesses, and international consumers.
4. From the Farm to the World
Since 2025, our avocado programme has continued to grow. To date, more than 7,000 tonnes of avocado have been exported, creating an important source of income for the farmers who produce the fruit.
Behind every tonne exported are individual farmers and farming families whose work begins long before the fruit reaches the market. Every tree represents years of care, and every harvest represents an opportunity to convert agricultural effort into household income.
The growing avocado market has therefore provided farmers with an opportunity to derive greater economic value from a crop that was already well established within their communities.
5. More Than a Commercial Crop
The story of avocado is also part of a wider story about sustainable agriculture and rural development.
Our work with farmers continues to place importance on environmentally aligned farming practices. Avocado production can form part of diversified farming systems while supporting farmers in maintaining productive agricultural land and improving their economic resilience.
By combining farmer support, sustainable agricultural practices, quality management, and market access, we aim to create a system where environmental responsibility and economic opportunity can work together.
The goal is not simply to produce more avocado. It is to ensure that farmers are better connected to the value created from their produce.
“For us, the avocado represents more than a fruit. It represents opportunity. An opportunity for farmers to earn from what they grow, to connect local agriculture with global markets, and to demonstrate that environmental protection and economic value can go hand in hand.”
6. Looking Ahead
The journey of the “Green Gold” is still unfolding.
What started as an effort to support farmers with sustainable agricultural practices has grown into an opportunity to connect local production with markets beyond the farm and beyond national borders.
With continued collaboration between farmers, extension teams, buyers, exporters, and other partners, there is an opportunity to strengthen the avocado value chain even further; creating more reliable markets, improving quality, supporting sustainable production, and increasing the value retained by farming communities.
This is the story of the Green Gold; from the hands of our farmers to markets around the world.
