Green gold with a dark secret. – Novel Hand

Avocados are a delicious and nutritious snack, but they have more than a few dark secrets. This month, we’re exploring the humanitarian side of avocados.

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Articles written by Natasha Chisholm

The World’s Green Gold: Part IV

This series gave us insight into the avocado industry – its history in the U.S., the environmental impact it has on the Michoacan State, and how workers within the industry are impacted. It is important to know these details about the industry, but how can we use our power as consumers to positively impact

Continue reading The World’s Green Gold: Part IV

The World’s Green Gold: Part III

So far in this series we have looked into the avocado’s history (how it is produced and how it became popular in the US), as well as its environmental impact. In this article, we’ll take a look at one of the driving forces of the industry – the workers. There’s no way that we

Continue reading The World’s Green Gold: Part III

The World’s Green Gold: Part II

In the last installment of this series, we took a deep-dive into the history of the avocado and how it became popular in the U.S. In this article, we’ll discuss the environmental impact of producing avocados, specifically in the Michoacan state in Mexico. Michoacan State spans over 22,000 square miles and is home to

Continue reading The World’s Green Gold: Part II

The World’s Green Gold: Part I

This series will explore the avocado industry and how increasing demand in the U.S. has had ethical and environmental repercussions. In this first installment of “The World’s Green Gold,” let’s examine the history of the fruit within the U.S. and an introduction to how its popularity has affected the environment. In recent years, healthy

Continue reading The World’s Green Gold: Part I

Create Impact

Take action with these impact opportunities curated by our team! Just click to get started.

ONE MINUTE

Avocados are the “superfood” du jour – the EU alone imported more than 700,000 tons last year. This boom has had a terrible impact on the growing regions: In Chile, the avocado industry is buying up water rights and drying out whole regions with their irrigation pumps – leaving local communities literally in the dust. This petition’s goal is to have Chile’s president repeal the 1981 water privatization law, clamp down on avocado cultivation and guarantee access to water for local communities.

Sign the petition to stop water theft for avocados.

Go to petition

FIVE MINUTES

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A post shared by Novel Hand | Social Impact (@novel.hand)

Next time you buy an avocado, try to find out as much as you can about where it was grown, who grew it, what farming practices they used, and more.

Here are our tips for investigating your avocado’s supply chain:

Start at the store. Ask
Look at the company’s website,

You might realize that this information is more difficult to find out than it should be… check out what we learned by watching the video to the left.

ONE HOUR

Watch the episode of the Netflix Original Documentary Series Rotten about avocados. We learned a lot from this episode and you will too!

Watch Rotten

SHORT-TERM

Amazon.com : Nutiva Organic Steam Refined Avocado Oil, 100% Pure, 24 Fl Oz Glass, USDA Organic, Non GMO, Whole 30 Approved, Keto, Paleo, High Heat Oil with Neutral Flavor and Aroma for

Nutiva is a company selling hemp-based products, healthy oils, and other socially and environmentally conscious products. Along with Tradin Organics, Nutiva has worked to make organic avocado oil accessible to consumers and fair for producers by creating a new supply chain based in Ethiopia. Fair pricing and efforts to educate the farmers have allowed Nutiva to form important partnerships with farmers in Ethiopia to offer the best quality products while supporting an underserved group.

Buy products from Nutiva to support their efforts towards environmental justice and sustainability.

Shop Nutiva

LONG-TERM

While it may seem difficult to address issues as broad as food injustice around the world, there are certain individual steps you can take to work towards more sustainability in the food industry. FoodPrint is an organization aiming to do exactly that. On their site, FoodPrint has listed various ways to make lifestyle changes to contribute less harm to the environment and its inhabitants.

Explore FoodPrint’s site for ways to address food injustice in your own life, including participating in their Season Eating Challenge!

Explore FoodPrint