Defying expectations, 2024 California avocado season delivers 350 million pounds

The 2024 California Avocado Festival comes at the tail end of an unusual 2024 California avocado harvest. Early season projections from January had the volume of the 2024 crop pegged at a paltry 208 million pounds. In July, the California Avocado Commission — hearing reports that there was a lot more fruit hanging on trees than projected — adjusted its seasonal crop estimate upward to 270 million pounds. 

Now that the season is about over, the crop, mostly Hass avocados, is likely to eclipse 350 million pounds. The extra fruit added several weeks to the season and kept packinghouses humming while some industry veterans wondered how the initial estimate was so far out of whack. 

"The crop obliterated all estimates given for the quantity of fruit," said Rick Shade of Shade Farm Management, which manages avocado ranches in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. "Inland Ventura County had a stellar year."

Lining Highway 126 into Santa Paula and Fillmore, some inland Ventura County avocado growers harvested well over 20,000 pounds per acre. Comparatively, the average avocado yield in San Diego and Riverside counties was approximately 3,000 pounds per acre in 2024. 

The Ventura County boom came on the heels of a couple of wet winters that supported a strong crop. That so much of the season's harvest centered in inland Ventura County emphasized the heavy shift in California avocado production from the southern growing region in San Diego County to the northern region of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. San Diego was the original hub of California avocado production, but more avocados now grow in the north, in large part due to the relative scarcity of water and its higher cost in the south. 

While rain produced a healthy crop inland, coastal avocados, including in Carpinteria, suffered from a prolonged cold and rainy season in spring 2023. Avocados harvested in 2024 set on the trees in the spring of 2023, or in the case of the coastal zone, did not set in 2023. In part, the weak coastal crop helps to explain low early season expectations.

"You could basically follow the fog line to predict who had a stellar year and not-so-good year in avocados," Shade said. "Groves inside the fog had a light year."

Lingering wet, cold conditions in 2023 hindered pollination. Without pollination, there's no fruit set. To promote pollination, commercial bees are transported into avocado growing regions when the trees are flowering in the spring. Since spring 2023 was cold, the hired bees weren't flying.

"Our bee man loves bringing bees to Carpinteria in the spring," Shade said. "But in 2023 we had to buy 5,000 gallons of molasses to feed the bees because they weren't leaving the hive."

Locally, along the coast, the cold weather also contributed to unusually high pest damage from thrips, an insect that causes brown scarring on the avocado skin. The scarred fruit remains good to eat, but it's not marketable at grocery stores. The affected fruit is diverted to restaurants and the foodservice industry at a lesser price than Grade A avocados. 

Mexican avocado issues boost California prices

No avocado industry analysis can be complete without considering the towering influence of the three-billion-pound Mexican crop that supplies nearly 90% of the US avocado demand. California growers plan their harvest to fit into windows when Mexican exports to the United States are thinnest, roughly between May and July, when California's crop is ready to be picked, and Mexico is in its lull.  

This year, in addition to Mexico's natural gap in production, the U.S. Department of Agriculture shut down Mexican avocado exports into the U.S. due to a security incident with U.S. inspectors in Mexico in June. For over a week, no Mexican avocados were allowed into the United States, which sent the market into a frenzy and led to prices on California fruit reaching over $2 per pound for the grower (which is huge). 

At that point, California growers scrambled to harvest their fruit and send it to a market that was paying about 50% more than it had been in the previous weeks. 

"We were done picking in early August, which is unheard of for me," said Shade, who worked to get fruit into the favorable market. 

Even with a light harvest in the coastal zone, including Carpinteria growers, strong prices made for a decent year in 2024.

Future farming, 2025 and beyond

The 2024 suspension of imports of Mexican avocados was the second time in three years that the United States acted to protect on-the-ground pest inspectors who were put in danger due to dicy security conditions in Michoacan, the primary Mexican avocado production hub, which also happens to be a center of gang violence. (The inspectors were not hurt.)

In September 2024, two changes were announced on Mexican imports. For one, USDA inspectors will no longer be on the ground to inspect for pests. Instead, Mexican counterparts will conduct pest inspections to clear the crop for export to the United States. The other change is Mexico will instate an avocado certification program to guarantee that fruit is not funding criminal enterprises nor grown on illegally deforested land. 

Avocado territory in Mexico also is a primary habitat for migrating monarch butterflies. Environmental groups have drawn attention to critical habitat loss, and the Mexican government is reacting to international criticism of its avocado industry. 

In California — Carpinteria included — early expectations are calling for a bumper avocado crop in 2025 exceeding 2024's 350 million pounds. While it's currently looking heavy, the 2025 crop is still subject to winter and Mother Nature's whims. 

"We've already seen some fruit from the 2025 crop falling in Moorpark due to the last heat wave," Shade said. "Overall, for next year, the quantity is looking good and the quality is looking outstanding. We never count the fruit until it's harvested and in the bin."