Ómós Digest #48: Avocados with a Clear Conscience
Introducing CrowdFarming, the startup tackling our food crisis.
They never told us in culinary school that food was best sourced from local farms. Nor that the chicken on our chopping boards lived an average of 28 days in an environment that resembles far from well…a farm. In fact during my entire education, I don’t recall visiting a single farm. What remains ingrained in my memory however, is the racing-green delivery van that arrived each morning, depositing a diverse array of imported produce on our doorstep: large sacks of French onions, British potatoes, Israeli parsley, and containers of tropical fruit purée destined for monotone sorbets and banal bavarois. The catering industry's delivery express - an efficient, affordable and consistently bad way of obtaining produce. Now each time I see the van pull up outside a restaurant, I'm reminded of the result of industrial globalisation and how far we have yet to come.
I’ll never forget my first cooking lesson at school. Bright-eyed, eager and bashfully naive, my school mates and I watched our tutor demonstrate the cooking of 30 hens’ eggs, each withdrawn from the water 10 seconds before the next. Lining them up in a row, each egg was cracked open like you would a soft boiled egg, revealing their doneness. Following the experiment, the tray of eggs was transferred to the bin. That day, we all learnt that anything under 5 minutes was not enough time to cook an egg. Consequently, 2 months out from my 30th birthday and 12 years following that experiment, I’m only now learning the true value of such lessons - that for decades we have abused our environment without any conscience. To put that into numbers: 19% of food waste takes place during the processing and wholesale phases, 5% at the retailers and 12% is caused by the catering and hospitality industry. The rest happens in our homes or through produce that fails to get harvested in the fields.
As a result of centuries of such passive waste, for the first time in humanity’s existence, we must now consider the future of our own kind. Humans have distanced themselves from the wildlife they live alongside. As the government hesitantly looks to introduce climate change actions that will undoubtedly affect the public (turf wars) and force the most traditionally reluctant into alternative measures, there is one overriding problem - we have become a species who don’t seem to know the first thing about food.
In a perfect world, the apple or humble pear is everything in a fruit I should require. While immigrants themselves, both grow well here. They can be stored throughout the winter and are delicious. Although the more perishable Irish cherry ranks high on my list, admittedly, my desert (or is it dessert?) island fruit is none of those mentioned. Rather ashamedly, if I were to take one final bite of fruit before my end it would come in the shape of a mango - a rather unfortunate acknowledgment when the island I live on is Ireland. On the subject of controversial fruit, avocados are another guilty pleasure; irresistible when accompanied with braised meat, wrapped in a corn tortilla and smothered in Valentina hot sauce. The perfect morsel… if only one were in Mexico. But here, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, no avocado is safe from controversy. They are a commodity best consumed in the manner that the French eat an ortolan - heads hidden under a towel. Once praised for their unsaturated fats, lauded by gym bros and influencer health nuts and even the birth of avocado-concept restaurants, they now get the silent treatment. Even in Mexico avocados get a bad rep. After decades of South America failing to find its wonder crop, it finally accrued success through the avocado. Today their successful exportation has resulted in their inflation, meaning the price of avocados exceeds the means of entire Mexican communities. With avocado plantations now subject to cartel exploitation, many cafés and restaurants globally have taken action to boycott them. Much has been written about avocado sustainability regarding the amount of water needed, it being a tropical crop. According to a FAO and University of Twente report, growing avocados requires an average of 1,000 l/kg, less than some citrus fruits or bananas. Other crops such as almonds or cocoa need 4,000 and 7,000 litres, respectively.
“Eating is an agricultural act”
Well, that’s what the poet Wendell Berry says anyway. Imagine a world where everything was local with each item passing through your hands easily traced back to the very place or person who made it. From the community that surrounds you, to the materials used to build your home, cups and plates that occupy your table, and the produce you use to nourish yourself and others; everything would be sourced with knowledge and appreciation of people, process and place. It may be idealistic, unless maybe you are Harrison Gardner or some other form of naturalist. Hoping that people will stop eating foreign foods is a delusional sentiment and acknowledging that Ireland will never again be 100% self-sufficient is a reality. Ultimately, society has evolved to a place where many no longer partake in this luxury of locavorism (the green delivery van springs to mind). Industrialisation has taken an intergenerational toll on how we operate and communicate. From the 1950’s onwards, this luxury of locality has been perceived as frugality, left to the working-class or shunted to the countryside. Many of us today are privileged to have what we want, when we want it but the planet is suffering as a consequence. For decades, the consideration of limiting availability has seemed unattractive. Consumerism and waste has become normalised, and entire communities who have had a taste for exotic produce, aren’t going back. Thus, the answer is not to scorn but to offer alternatives. After all, I still want to eat avocados! I want to continue to enjoy the flavour of citrus, but I want to be able to do so with good conscience. Therefore, here is an organisation I recently came across that tackles just that. It's called CrowdFarming and I’ve become their latest customer.
A farmer’s delight
Founded by brothers Gonzalo and Gabriel Úrculo, CrowdFarming is an initiative that provides customers with organic food direct from the farmer. No supermarkets, no middle men and no long haul transatlantic transportation. CrowdFarming provides the platform for farmers and customers to communicate through an online transaction service that is farmer focused. Within a corner of Southern Europe, Mediterranean fields are disguised to look like tropical landscapes. Here, a group of local farmers grow popular exotic fruits so they don't have to cross an entire ocean before reaching our tables. These environmentally conscious European growers have created the #tropiterranean movement as a brand to differentiate their organic tropical fruits.
Firstly, what is enticing about CrowdFarming is that their website is extremely well designed. It’s obvious that this startup knows what they are doing. Their aim is to bring you on their journey and the website really achieves that. What grabbed me is the traceability. They provide you with all of the information about produce that is noticeably missing in a supermarket. Two weeks ago I placed an order for 5kg of mangoes and 4kg of avocados. That’s a lot of fruit right? We’ll get to that. Orders can take up to 3 weeks to arrive and there's a reason for that too. Unlike supermarkets, CrowdFarming doesn't have a central depot. When there's a middle man, produce gets sent to these centralised holding units, before being distributed to its destination. With CrowdFarming, orders are coupled at the farm, and once enough orders have been placed from a single farm, for let’s say a destination like Ireland, the fruit is picked, packaged and immediately sent to your door via the farm. By going directly through the farmer, you empower them, influencing the sale price of their food. You also receive a product that is more delicious, responsibly grown, traceable and more sustainably transported.
When I received my order, a letter was enclosed addressed to me by the farmer. In this case my avocados came from Vanesa Medina, who grows tropical fruit such as mangoes and kumquats all under the Andalusian sun in Malaga. There's something irrepressibly evocative about eating food whose journey you have followed. Just like in restaurants, narrative has great power. As a result, cutting into the beautifully shaped avocado gave me great joy. Holding one half in my hand, I scooped a piece using a teaspoon. The avocado was wonderful. Perfectly ripe, creamy with a wholeness to its flavour. Almost like drinking water straight from a spring. The farmers thoughtfully picked the fruit at various degrees of ripeness, so that when my order arrived, a portion of the fruit was ready to eat, with others set to ripen gradually over the next week.
Receiving a glut of fruit may seem wasteful or intimidating to some, but it's almost reverting back to how food was obtained in the first place. After all, large harvests forced us into determining ways of preservation - drying, pickling and candying citrus fruit. These are ancient techniques our ancestors implemented and could be a great way to preserve parts of your order you’re having difficulty getting through. Personally speaking, I can't help but think of a more thoughtful gift than a box of mangoes from CrowdFarming. Either a whole box for a party or a portion of your delivery split amongst friends and neighbours. It reminds me of simpler times, like that of lockdown when all we had to do was offer random acts of kindness!
Adopt a tree
According to CrowdFarming, “A great share of food waste happens before food even reaches our homes. 11% happens at the source. We are talking about produced food that won't even be harvested”. This is a needless expenditure of resources and energy that won’t have been harvested. CrowdFarming fights against food waste at the source thanks to adoptions. When you adopt something, you allow the farmer to grow a crop knowing that someone will consume it. In the food supply chain, many farmers grow crops without knowing whether they'll be able to sell them. Moreover, the farmers at CrowdFarming don't throw away "ugly fruit", as they abide by product-quality criteria instead of aesthetic ones. By adopting something you take part in the cultivation process of your food and this totally changes your experience as a consumer.
Or
In my debut article ‘Magical Berries’, published in 2021, I described my first experience eating a mango curbside in a rural town in Mexico. The wondrous sensation of tasting that was mesmeric and will forever stick with me. When agriculture is given true respect and treated within the right parameters, extraordinary results can be achieved. Unfortunately for us, a mango travelling 10,000 air miles will always pale in comparison to that eaten in its best-suited conditions - directly from the tree. Following the arrival of my avocados this week, I ignorantly awaited the arrival of my box of mangoes, expecting them to show up any day…Of course, mangoes a crop requiring prolonged periods of heat and sunshine, do not ripen in Spain until later in the year. My shipment is due sometime in September. And so, when the Irish summer nears its end, I will have have my mangoes to look forward to!
I can’t help but think CrowdFarming is helping shorten this supply chain while empowering great farmers who deserve your support. These are the decisions and thoughts I try to make. What decision will you make? Lastly I’d like to leave you with a poem, by Wendell Berry.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry.