Global consumption of avocados has experienced unprecedented growth over the past 10 to 20 years.

This surge in demand is closely tied to global dietary trends that emphasize plant-based foods and the widespread perception of avocados as a health food, particularly among vegan and health-conscious consumers.

The transformation of avocados from a regional fruit to a global staple has been facilitated by successful trade agreements, especially between Mexico and the United States, and by rapidly growing demand in markets such as Europe, East Asia, and North America.

As a result, production levels have reached record highs, especially in major exporting countries .

Mexico remains the dominant producer, responsible for about 80% of global avocados.

It exports approximately 80% of its production to the United States, which comprises 40% of the U.S. avocado market; California provides 28%, and Peru 24%.

European imports of avocados also continue to climb, with a notable 23% annual rise in one recent year.

By contrast, China, though a key emerging market, recently saw a sharp decline in imports from Peru, indicating shifts in trade relationships and market volatility .

Economically, this rising demand has brought significant benefits to avocado-producing regions.

In Mexico, for instance, avocado exports to the U.S. have been substantially more profitable—typically over 50% more than selling avocados domestically.

The growth in exports has provided new market opportunities, not just with the United States but also with Canada, Japan, Spain, and other countries.

Rising export revenues have improved profitability for many large producers, and in some contexts have benefited local economies and created jobs.

However, the economic gains are not uniform.

In countries such as New Zealand and Australia, market gluts have occasionally depressed prices, causing hardship for smaller growers and leading to economic instability at the local level.

Fluctuating export markets, shifting trade routes, and increased production elsewhere have also introduced new economic challenges .

Yet this economic boon comes with serious environmental trade-offs.

In the state of Michoacán, Mexico—by far the world’s largest avocado-producing region—expanding avocado plantations have driven local deforestation as forests are cleared to make way for new orchards.

The effects include loss of biodiversity, increased soil erosion, and contamination of water sources due to heavy use of agrochemicals.

Water usage is a particular concern: producing a single kilogram of avocados may require around 1,000 liters of water, a far higher rate than many competing crops.

This has resulted in severe water shortages in producing areas in Mexico, Chile, and Peru, especially where irrigation competes with the needs of local communities.

Additionally, broadscale avocado farming is associated with significant greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to long-distance transportation to major markets; shipping one kilogram of avocados can result in approximately 5.4 kg of CO2 emissions .

The environmental effects are further exacerbated by climate change, which poses acute risks for avocado productivity in virtually all of the world’s major growing areas.

By 2050, it is projected that current avocado production regions—including Mexico, Chile, Peru, Burundi, South Africa, and Spain—could experience productivity declines between 14% and 41%, driven by higher temperatures, droughts, and shifting precipitation patterns.

In Mexico, specifically, estimates suggest a possible 31% decrease in the area suitable for growing avocados if carbon emissions remain high .

Socially, the avocado boom has had multifaceted impacts on local communities.

In some areas, the profitability of export avocados has changed traditional land use patterns, leading to the displacement of indigenous and local farming communities.

Land grabbing and the replacement of subsistence and traditional crops with commercial avocado farming have threatened food security and contributed to a loss of local biodiversity.

Labor exploitation is a recurring concern, particularly with the employment of migrant workers under poor or insecure working conditions.

In Mexico, the phenomenon of “avocado mafias”—criminal organizations that seek to profit from the lucrative trade—has resulted in widespread extortion of farmers, violence, and further illegal deforestation.

These impacts are compounded by inequities in who profits, as large agribusinesses tend to benefit disproportionately compared to smallholders, who may lack resources and resilience to cope with market and environmental shocks .

Faced with these challenges, some progress is being made in promoting more sustainable avocado production.

Efforts include the adoption of efficient irrigation systems such as drip irrigation, reductions in chemical usage, and programs to provide financial and technical support to vulnerable farming communities for investing in sustainability and mitigation measures.

However, the effectiveness and coverage of such initiatives remain limited, and they are not yet widespread enough to fully offset the negative impacts seen in major production zones .

In summary, the global surge in avocado demand has dramatically altered not only international trade patterns and economic prospects for producing regions but also the environmental and social landscapes of countries like Mexico, Peru, and Chile.

Increased export earnings and new markets have created opportunities, yet these benefits are overshadowed in some cases by the costs: deforestation, depletion of water resources, chemical pollution, increased greenhouse gas emissions, as well as land conflicts, labor exploitation, and the marginalization of traditional farming systems and communities.

As a consumer seeking to align dietary choices with planetary health and social well-being, considering the source of avocados—opting for certified sustainable or locally produced options where possible—and supporting efforts to improve supply chain transparency and producer livelihoods can help minimize the negative consequences associated with this global staple .

Global consumption of avocados has experienced unprecedented growth over the past 10 to 20 years.

Title:

Content: Avocado: Between Environmental Impacts and Global Market Controllers
In the Mexican state of Michoacán, which produces about 80% of the world ’ s avocado, avocado cultivation has depleted local water supplies and caused severe environmental damage, with studies showing that avocado cultivation has led to deforestation, soil erosion and chemical contamination of water sources.
(Getty)
In recent years, the avocado industry has become a staple in many diets around the world, and its popularity has increased greatly due to the multiple health benefits.
However, the demand for this fruit has led to harmful environmental effects and the emergence of a mafia that controls the production and distribution of avocados in some countries.
A Chilean study published recently said that avocado cultivation has caused severe water shortages, as well as in Peru, where large farmers have dominated the avocado market since the 1990s, where cultivation requires huge amounts of water, the production of one kilogram of avocado, consumes about 1,000 liters of water, much more than other crops such as tomatoes or oranges.
According to a report by the Water Footprint Network, the production of one kilogram of tomatoes requires about 300 liters of water, and the high water use of avocado production has led to water scarcity and depletion of aquifers in some areas.
In the Mexican state of Michoacán, which produces about 80% of the world ’ s avocado, avocado cultivation has depleted local water supplies and caused severe environmental damage, with studies showing that avocado cultivation has led to deforestation, soil erosion and chemical contamination of water sources.
According to the report, moving avocados from the production site to the market also has a significant impact on the climate, as avocados are grown mainly in developing countries, and are exported to developed countries such as the United States, Europe and Japan, and the transport of avocados over long distances contributes to greenhouse gas emissions harmful to the environment. Approximately 5.4 kg of carbon dioxide emissions per kg of avocado.
Avocado production has also led to the emergence of a mafia that controls the production and distribution of avocados in some countries, where the avocado mafia operates mainly in Mexico, where it controls the production and export of avocados, and this mafia, according to media reports, consists of criminal organizations that use violence and intimidation to control the production and distribution of avocados, and often extort money from farmers. The avocado mafia uses violence to eliminate competitors and dominate the export market, as studies have shown that these gangs are responsible for deforestation, land grabbing and violence against indigenous communities in Mexico.
According to dozens of studies published in recent years, avocado cultivation also has negative effects on local communities. In some areas, demand for avocados has led to land grabbing, community displacement, labor exploitation, and avocado cultivation in the Mexican state of Michoacán has led to the displacement of indigenous communities and the exploitation of often paid migrant workers. Some studies have shown that the expansion of avocado cultivation has displaced traditional crops, leading to food insecurity and loss of biodiversity.
According to the study, governments around the world can take various measures to mitigate the impact of this agriculture on the climate, and one way is to promote sustainable avocado farming practices that reduce water use and reduce the use of chemicals. Protect the environment, provide financial incentives to farmers and enact laws that will deter illegal and criminal practices in these countries.

How has avocado consumption changed in recent years?

This surge in demand is closely tied to global dietary trends that emphasize plant-based foods and the widespread perception of avocados as a health food, particularly among vegan and health-conscious consumers.

How has avocado consumption changed in recent years?

The transformation of avocados from a regional fruit to a global staple has been facilitated by successful trade agreements, especially between Mexico and the United States, and by rapidly growing demand in markets such as Europe, East Asia, and North America.

How has avocado consumption changed in recent years?

What are the positive effects of the global demand for avocados on the countries and regions that produce and export them?

As a result, production levels have reached record highs, especially in major exporting countries .

Title:

Content: Smashing news: Early season avocados just 80 cents each

Forks at the ready, avo fans – with the harvest just beginning, the fruit is already going cheap.

A scan of supermarket prices on Tuesday revealed avocados, harvested from August to February, were already selling for as little as 80 cents a pop.

A Countdown spokesperson said grower investment over the last couple of years meant it had a good supply of New Zealand-grown fruit.

“Over the last year, avocado sales have increased by more than 25%,” they said.

READ MORE:
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Foodstuffs spokesperson Emma Wooster said more than 31 million avocados were sold in its New World, Pak ‘n Save and Four Square stores last year.

“We expect to see great value and availability on avocados continue as crops grow larger – great news as we know New Zealanders love some avo on their morning toast,” Wooster said.

NZ Avocado chief executive Jen Scoular said New Zealanders bought more than 80 million avocados last season, which was “a record, and a great one.”

“With increased prices for fruit and vegetables, and our new season crop available, it’s a great time for Kiwis to grab an extra couple of avocados in their weekly shopping and try avocados in new ways.”

But the bargain-basement prices come at a cost to avocado growers, who have already had a tough couple of years.

Repeated Covid-19 lockdowns, shipping problems and changing shopping habits had all impacted on growers’ ability to shift their produce.

On top of that, increased production in Australia, usually New Zealand’s biggest export market, resulted in an “avalanche” of avocados there last year.

The oversupply led to prices hitting a 15-year low of $1 each and a 76% slump in New Zealand’s exports across the Tasman.

Scoular said New Zealand produced about 1.5% of global avocado supply, and she believed demand in Asia could be “increased significantly with good investment in that market development.”

What are the positive effects of the global demand for avocados on the countries and regions that produce and export them?

Mexico remains the dominant producer, responsible for about 80% of global avocados.

Title:

Content: For foodies, workers, restaurant owners and investors on both sides of the Rio Grande border, Friday brought a sigh of relief after the United States lifted its temporary ban on imports of Mexican avocados.

The week-long pause — albeit a short one — had fueled concerns in the avocado industry, from the workers who pick the fruit in Mexico to consumers worrying about a potential shortage of a staple in the diets of many Americans.

Mexico supplies about 80 percent of the avocados eaten in the United States. The import ban — stemming from purported threats to a U.S. inspector in the Latin American country — shook a billion-dollar industry. Not only did the commotion showcase the law enforcement issues that growers are frequently subjected to in Mexico, but experts said it underscored the importance of one of the strongest and most successful bilateral trade agreements.

Before being smeared into toast or squashed into guacamole, the avocado’s life begins in an orchard in Michoacán — a western Mexican state over a thousand miles away from the border and the only one allowed to send over avocados to the United States. From a bright-green fruit hanging atop trees to its final stage inside American kitchens, the avocado’s journey from seed to food encompasses different phases of inspections and agreements between the two nations — which suddenly took a hit.

Last week, a plant safety inspector from the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was inspecting avocados in Michoacán, when he saw some avocados that looked suspiciously like they came from another state, according to USDA and other industry experts. He raised a red flag and soon after, he received a voice-mail threat. Then the USDA announced it was shutting down imports until it could be assured its agents were safe.

The potential of an impending shortage quickly rippled across the industry — one that came shortly before the Super Bowl, one of the avocado’s biggest events. Soon, food establishments and groceries began worrying about keeping up with a demand that has exponentially increased throughout the past decade.

Prices for the fruit deemed “green gold” were already 100 percent higher than the previous year, said David Magaña, a senior analyst for RaboResearch Food & Agribusiness. But the year-long availability of avocados had also increased as well — indicating that a surge in demand can be attributed to different factors, he said.

For one, avocados, with their versatility and healthy fat attributes, became a food trend and Internet obsession. At the same time, the Hispanic population booms across the country — with a larger share of Latinos among Gen Z — have been “one of the major forces pulling the demand for avocados,” the analyst said.

But behind all those green juices and avocado Instagram-worthy photos is the partnership between Mexico and the United States — which has played a crucial role in enabling the market to expand.

In 1995 — a time when “fat-free” food staples ruled the market — the United States did not have much of a taste for avocados. The majority of the consumed fruit was produced in California. Avocado imports that year totaled $14.7 million, of which $700,000 came from Mexico, said David Orden, a professor in the department of agricultural and applied economics at Virginia Tech.

Mexico’s avocados had been banned in the decades before the North American Free Trade Agreement from 1994, Orden said — mostly out of a concern that weevils, scabs and other pests could enter U.S. orchards from imported products. The trade agreement opened the door for the incremental expansion of avocados.

In establishing a system in which U.S. inspectors verify that avocados are pest-free — from when they are growing in orchards to the moment they are packed into sealed trucks — Mexico has been allowed to ship its agricultural product. It started with an approved wintertime stock in Alaska back in the ’90s that has turned into a current year-long supply in all states.

“So that’s all very encouraging and great story about growth and trade agreements, and something the U.S. is trying to do in other countries as well,” Orden said.

The agreement has contributed to economic progress in both sides of the border. Last year, “the two-way food and agricultural trade reached $65 billion, including $2.8 billion in Mexican avocado exports to the United States,” U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said in a statement. In Michoacán, some 300,000 workers depend on the avocado industry — including those doing the picking, the packing and the transporting of the fruit.

But their livelihoods have been threatened by encumbering cartels, who see the booming industry as a golden hen for profit, Orden said.

“It has attracted the attention of these gangs in an area where the cartels are not under control,” he said. “That’s where this story takes on a shadier color. But that’s really a law enforcement issue, and one that affects all of our relationships with Mexico.”

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said in a statement that it had worked with the Mexican government and the Association of Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico to enact “additional measures” to safeguard the safety of its inspectors.

While the agency did not disclose what such measures encompass, they served to avert what could have been a costly avocado crisis — one that would had impacted plenty, from those picking the fruit to those biting into their avocado toasts.

“With this we ensure the exportation of fruit and provide economic certainty to farmers and day laborers,” Michoacán Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla tweeted Friday.

What are the countries and regions that produce and export avocados?

It exports approximately 80% of its production to the United States, which comprises 40% of the U.S. avocado market; California provides 28%, and Peru 24%.

Title:

Content: Avocado imports rise in Europe, decline in China

More News Top Stories

Specialized intelligence company Avobook's week 29 report noted interesting movements in the global avocado market.

European avocado imports saw a 23% rise compared to the same week in 2023. Interestingly, the report points out that this has not induced a price reduction.

. The interesting thing, the report points out, is that this has not induced a price reduction.

Something different can be observed in China, where arrivals from Peru have decreased by more than half year-on-year. Peruvian supplies usually dominate the market at this time of the year.

In the case of the United States, Avobook explains that Mexican supplies account for 40% of the market, while California's account for 28%, and Peru's, 24%. The scenario in the U.S. market shows slightly lower prices than the previous week in all grades.

Review the full report here.

The Global Avocado Summit, organized by the Chilean Avocado Committee and the Yentzen Group, will be held on November 21 at the Casino Monticello event center in Chile.

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European imports of avocados also continue to climb, with a notable 23% annual rise in one recent year.

How has avocado consumption changed in recent years?

What are the countries and regions that import avocados?

What are the positive effects of the global demand for avocados on the countries and regions that produce and export them?

By contrast, China, though a key emerging market, recently saw a sharp decline in imports from Peru, indicating shifts in trade relationships and market volatility .

Economically, this rising demand has brought significant benefits to avocado-producing regions.

What are the positive effects of the global demand for avocados on the countries and regions that produce and export them?

In Mexico, for instance, avocado exports to the U.S. have been substantially more profitable—typically over 50% more than selling avocados domestically.

Title:

Content: Mexican avocado production to fall in 2021-22 - FreshFruitPortal.com

Mexican avocado production to fall in 2021-22

Mexican avocado production is forecast to fall by eight percent year-on-year in the 2021-22 season, according to a USDA GAIN report.

The country is expected to produce 2.33 million metric tons (MMT) between July 2021 and June 2022, following a record volume year in the previous season.

"Growers state that they are expecting needed tree recovery after record productivity and production (especially in Michoacán) in the MY 2020/21 season," the report said.

"Additionally, insufficient rainfall and high temperatures are likely to reduce production and yields in non-Michoacan producing states."

Mexico is forecasted to export 1.33 MMT in 2021-22, eight percent lower than the previous season, on lower production. Exports to the U.S. are forecasted at 1.04 MMT.

Michoacán, the only state with phytosanitary approvals to export to the U.S. typically exports approximately 85 percent of production.

According to the USDA, profit margins for export to the U.S. are typically more than 50 percent higher than supplies sold to the domestic market. Michoacán also exported 22 percent greater volumes in 2020/21 than the previous MY to non-U.S. markets, on increased production. Canada, Japan, and Spain were the main destinations.

International demand for avocados from Mexico continues to increase, and producers without access to the U.S. market continue to seek international markets with higher profitability than the domestic market. Jalisco exported 26 percent more volume than the previous marketing year in 2020/21, mainly to Japan, Canada, France and Spain.

Planted and harvested areas are forecasted at 227,126 hectares (ha) and 225,910 ha respectively, with a national yield of 10.30 metric tons per hectare (MT/ha).

Harvest reaches peak from October to February, with average supply from March to May, and low season from June to September.

Annual per capita consumption is seven kilograms (approximately 15 pounds) per person. While a staple in Mexican cuisine, avocado consumption has not grown in recent years because of high prices driven by increased international demand.

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What are the positive effects of the global demand for avocados on the countries and regions that produce and export them?

The growth in exports has provided new market opportunities, not just with the United States but also with Canada, Japan, Spain, and other countries.

What are the countries and regions that import avocados?

What are the positive effects of the global demand for avocados on the countries and regions that produce and export them?

Rising export revenues have improved profitability for many large producers, and in some contexts have benefited local economies and created jobs.

Title:

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Mike Coudrey’s Tova Farms Raises Nearly $1 Million In Funding, Adds Strategic Export Partners

·2 min read

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / February 17, 2022 / Tova Farms said Monday it raised $950,000 in a Series A funding round that values the agricultural company at approximately $1.4 million - nearly triple its last reported valuation in 2021, according to PitchBook data. The Puerto Rico-based company, known for its innovative investment strategy, has now raised nearly $1.2 million to date.

Tova Sustainable Farms CEO, Michael Coudrey

Avocado agriculture is a billion-dollar industry that's failed to move with the speed of the 21st century, long reliant on outdated supply chain management, inadequate commercial operations in jurisdictions nearby to the target market, and import/export phytosanitary regulation that act as a blockade for international trade. Numerous challenges - from congestion at ports to shortages of shipping containers - have arisen throughout the pandemic, leading to higher produce costs and delivery delays, and magnifying how critical the often-taken-for-granted agricultural industry is more broadly.

Tova Farm's commercial farming operations exceed 5000 acres, and their additional local sourcing methodology positions them as a multinational powerhouse in the global avocado industry. Tova's innovative approaches to local sourcing in cost-effective jurisdictions, policy and trade agreement brokering between governments, and its influential political arm allow it to rapidly expand its operations, while also moving the market in a positive direction for smaller agricultural companies, giving them an opportunity to take advantage of the openings in international trade.

In the past year, founder and CEO Michael Coudrey has focused on questions like how can avocado be produced and exported in the most cost effective manner - the company has recently signed export agreements with leading European firms.

"The avocado market has increased substantially in the last two decades, and our company seeks to capitalize and control a large market share of such revenues, as well as vertically integrate across our supply chains," Coudrey said in a statement announcing the funding. "This investment signals that the market recognizes the need for a tech-enabled agricultural ecosystem that has the visibility and resilience to handle unexpected challenges of any scale."

Tova Sustainable Farms has more than 5000 acres of commercial farmland and export partners in 6 countries, and reportedly doubled its commercial operations within the last year. With fresh financing, the company says it plans to begin expanding into new markets and accelerate the development of its current operations.

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SOURCE: Tova Farms

View source version on accesswire.com:
https://www.accesswire.com/688502/Mike-Coudreys-Tova-Farms-Raises-Nearly-1-Million-In-Funding-Adds-Strategic-Export-Partners

What are the positive effects of the global demand for avocados on the countries and regions that produce and export them?

However, the economic gains are not uniform.

In countries such as New Zealand and Australia, market gluts have occasionally depressed prices, causing hardship for smaller growers and leading to economic instability at the local level.

What crises have happened on the global avocado market in the recent years?

oversupply of avocados in Australia
prices falling sharply

Fluctuating export markets, shifting trade routes, and increased production elsewhere have also introduced new economic challenges .

Yet this economic boon comes with serious environmental trade-offs.

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the environment?

In the state of Michoacán, Mexico—by far the world’s largest avocado-producing region—expanding avocado plantations have driven local deforestation as forests are cleared to make way for new orchards.

What are the countries and regions that produce and export avocados?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the environment?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

The effects include loss of biodiversity, increased soil erosion, and contamination of water sources due to heavy use of agrochemicals.

Water usage is a particular concern: producing a single kilogram of avocados may require around 1,000 liters of water, a far higher rate than many competing crops.

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the environment?

This has resulted in severe water shortages in producing areas in Mexico, Chile, and Peru, especially where irrigation competes with the needs of local communities.

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the environment?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

Additionally, broadscale avocado farming is associated with significant greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to long-distance transportation to major markets; shipping one kilogram of avocados can result in approximately 5.4 kg of CO2 emissions .

What strategies can make global avocado trade more ethical?

The environmental effects are further exacerbated by climate change, which poses acute risks for avocado productivity in virtually all of the world’s major growing areas.

Title:

Content: Lifestyle
Study: Climate change threatens avocados
• 1 / 2
• 2 / 2
Thank you for reading about the study: Climate change threatens avocados and now we start with the details
Activists have called for more support for avocado farmers, with a study released by the international charity Christian Aid (Christian Aid) revealing that climate change is having a “terrible impact ” on fruit.
The highly useful and popular fruit, which is high in fiber and healthy fats, requires a lot of water to grow, making it particularly vulnerable in a hotter, drier world.
A study by FAO showed that the best farming regions in countries such as Burundi, Chile, Peru, Spain, South Africa and Mexico are experiencing declines in productivity due to more volatile conditions.
The study, published yesterday, showed that these regions are expected to decline by between 14% and 41% by 2050, depending on how quickly emissions are reduced in the world.
Mexico, the world ’ s largest producer of avocado, could see a 31% decline in cultivated areas by 2050.
Christian Aid called on governments to commit to urgently reducing emissions, accelerating the energy transition and committing to more climate aid for developing countries.
The charity also called for more financial support to vulnerable farming communities that rely on avocado cultivation for a living, so they can invest in mitigation measures.
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By 2050, it is projected that current avocado production regions—including Mexico, Chile, Peru, Burundi, South Africa, and Spain—could experience productivity declines between 14% and 41%, driven by higher temperatures, droughts, and shifting precipitation patterns.

In Mexico, specifically, estimates suggest a possible 31% decrease in the area suitable for growing avocados if carbon emissions remain high .

Socially, the avocado boom has had multifaceted impacts on local communities.

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

In some areas, the profitability of export avocados has changed traditional land use patterns, leading to the displacement of indigenous and local farming communities.

What illegal activities have surfaced in avocado trade in recent years?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

land grabbing
displacement of local communities

Land grabbing and the replacement of subsistence and traditional crops with commercial avocado farming have threatened food security and contributed to a loss of local biodiversity.

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

land grabbing
displacement of local communities

Labor exploitation is a recurring concern, particularly with the employment of migrant workers under poor or insecure working conditions.

What illegal activities have surfaced in avocado trade in recent years?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

What strategies can make global avocado trade more ethical?

improving working conditions for employees

In Mexico, the phenomenon of “avocado mafias”—criminal organizations that seek to profit from the lucrative trade—has resulted in widespread extortion of farmers, violence, and further illegal deforestation.

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the environment?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

These impacts are compounded by inequities in who profits, as large agribusinesses tend to benefit disproportionately compared to smallholders, who may lack resources and resilience to cope with market and environmental shocks .

What strategies can make global avocado trade more ethical?

Faced with these challenges, some progress is being made in promoting more sustainable avocado production.

What strategies can make global avocado trade more ethical?

Efforts include the adoption of efficient irrigation systems such as drip irrigation, reductions in chemical usage, and programs to provide financial and technical support to vulnerable farming communities for investing in sustainability and mitigation measures.

What strategies can make global avocado trade more ethical?

However, the effectiveness and coverage of such initiatives remain limited, and they are not yet widespread enough to fully offset the negative impacts seen in major production zones .

In summary, the global surge in avocado demand has dramatically altered not only international trade patterns and economic prospects for producing regions but also the environmental and social landscapes of countries like Mexico, Peru, and Chile.

How has avocado consumption changed in recent years?

What are the countries and regions that produce and export avocados?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the environment?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

Increased export earnings and new markets have created opportunities, yet these benefits are overshadowed in some cases by the costs: deforestation, depletion of water resources, chemical pollution, increased greenhouse gas emissions, as well as land conflicts, labor exploitation, and the marginalization of traditional farming systems and communities.

What are the positive effects of the global demand for avocados on the countries and regions that produce and export them?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the environment?

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

labor exploitation
displacement of local communities

As a consumer seeking to align dietary choices with planetary health and social well-being, considering the source of avocados—opting for certified sustainable or locally produced options where possible—and supporting efforts to improve supply chain transparency and producer livelihoods can help minimize the negative consequences associated with this global staple .

What negative impact has the increased global demand for avocados had on the social structure and the economy of the countries that produce them?

What strategies can make global avocado trade more ethical?

sustainable agricultural techniques
local sourcing


In addition to essential nutrients, salmon feed contains a range of additives for quality, appearance, and preservation.

Common colorants, specifically astaxanthin and canthaxanthin, are added to farmed salmon feed to enhance the pink-red hue of fillets, mimicking wild salmon.

Both are approved with strict maximum residue limits in the EU, Norway, and Canada.

Antioxidants such as ethoxyquin are widely used to prevent fat oxidation in feed, but ethoxyquin’s safety is under review; the EU limits ethoxyquin to 50 µg/kg due to concerns over possible carcinogenicity and tissue accumulation.

Feed formulations may also include binding agents, such as plant-based gums or prebiotics, and flavor enhancers, while microalgae and certain novel binders are under evaluation.

Growth promoters—particularly hormones and beta-agonists—are prohibited in aquaculture across the EU, Norway, and China due to consumer health risk, with a global trend away from antibiotic growth promoters.

Antibiotic use in salmon farming has dropped significantly; major producers like Norway, the EU, Chile, and Canada now allow only specific antibiotics (e.g., tetracycline, florfenicol) for disease treatment with veterinary oversight and enforced withdrawal periods.

Substances such as nitrofurans, chloramphenicol, and malachite green are explicitly banned.

Vitamin and mineral premixes are standard, typically including A, D, E, B-complex, C, zinc, selenium, phosphorus, magnesium, and iodine.

Heavy metals (arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium) and unauthorized additives are tightly regulated with mandatory residue screening.

Health concerns for consumers focus on bioaccumulation of chemical contaminants (heavy metals, PCBs, banned drugs) in fish, which can raise cancer and developmental risks with chronic exposure above regulatory limits.

Some additives or contaminants can also trigger allergic reactions; metal contaminants are not remedied by cooking.

In addition to essential nutrients, salmon feed contains a range of additives for quality, appearance, and preservation.

Title:

Content: 262
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China Works to Get Wild-Caught Fish Out of its Aquaculture Feed

[By Zhang Chun]

A 2021 Chinese government initiative to stop aquaculture feed being made from only young or low-value fish and to instead start producing “compound feed” – mixed with ingredients harvested from the land – is opening up a greener future for the sector.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in a series of trials last year, the sole use of low-value “feed-grade” fish as aquaculture feed was reduced by 77 percent, and by as much as 94 percent in farming of largemouth bass. Experts say the switch to compound feed could see overall use of feed-grade fish slashed by half for farming of certain species.

What is compound feed?

Compound feed normally contains a mixture of animal- and plant-based ingredients, and added nutrients such as vitamins. For aquaculture feeds containing fishmeal and fish oil, common additives include soy proteins, wheat gluten and corn gluten meal.

Feed-grade fish are those in a catch that are small, low in commercial value, or unsuitable for human consumption. They are sent to be processed into fishmeal and fish oil, or fed directly to farmed fish. But a significant proportion of feed-grade fish consists of juveniles of commercially important species. Once caught they can no longer grow into adult fish and breed, or be caught and sold on the market. Their removal damages ocean food chains and ecosystem stability.

The last decade and more has seen increased calls for China to tackle the use of feed-grade fish in aquaculture, but the current round of trials is the first organised by the Ministry of Agriculture. It focuses on species such as the yellow croaker, Japanese sea bass and largemouth bass, which tend to be fed more feed-grade fish. While those species don’t account for much of China’s fed aquaculture output, they do require much more protein than others to put on the same amount of weight. Compound feed cuts down on the use of fish by substituting vegetable alternatives, and is cheaper.

In the long term, sustained reductions in the use of fishmeal and fish oil in feed will be necessary to protect wild fisheries.

Aquaculture driving feed-grade fish catch

Fishers never used to set out to catch feed-grade fish; it was bycatch, with no economic value. Then in the 1980s, global aquaculture took off. “There was a lot of need for fishmeal and oil,” Rashid Sumalia, a fisheries researcher at the University of British Columbia, told China Dialogue. People started going out “purposely to catch them at distance, because there was a market”, he added.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO’s) 2020 global fisheries and aquaculture report, the use of fish for reduction to fishmeal and fish oil peaked in 1994 at 30 million tonnes, and stood at 18 million tonnes by 2018. Another 4 million tonnes were used elsewhere, including directly in feed for aquaculture, livestock and fur animals.

It wasn’t until the mid and late 1990s that aquaculture took off in China. The FAO’s 1998 fisheries and aquaculture report describes how rare it was for fish catches in Asia to go unused or be used as aquaculture feed. But in Asia, particularly in China and Vietnam, aquaculture has expanded rapidly and the region now accounts for almost 90 percent of global output. In China, output tripled between 1998 and 2020, to represent 60 percent of the global total.

Although many of the species farmed in China need little or no feed, fed fish and crustacean aquaculture accounts for half of output and requires millions of tonnes of feed-grade fish from Chinese waters alone. China does not currently have statistics on its feed-grade fish catch or use in fed aquaculture. One study calculated that in 2016 4.6 million tonnes of feed-grade fish were caught, 35 percent of the total recorded catch in China’s waters, and most was used directly as feed.

“The state is certainly aware of the problem,” said Fang Qing, China general manager for the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, adding that the difficulty in banning some harmful types of fishing gear in China is due to the ongoing market for the feed-grade fish it brings in. Since 2018, China has put minimum size limits in place for 15 commercial fish species, and ruled that feed-grade fish catch would drop to below 20% by 2020. There is no data available indicating whether this target was met.

This it isn’t just a Chinese problem. According to a 2017 study by the University of British Columbia, many countries, including the US and Norway, use feed-grade fish directly as feed. But the practice increased significantly in Asia between the 1990s and 2010, with feed-grade fish coming to account for a high percentage of landed catches.

Replacing feed-grade fish

In early 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture announced it would work to make Chinese aquaculture more environmentally friendly, and proposed the use of compound feed instead of purely fish-based feed. In April 2021, several provinces started trials of compound feed as part of more concrete action plans.

Compound feed for aquaculture is usually a mix of fishmeal, fish oil, wheat flour, soybean meal, vegetable oil and other land-grown ingredients. The amount of fishmeal and fish oil needed depends on the type of fish to be fed, and its stage of growth. According to Fang Qing, carnivorous fish such as the yellow croaker need huge quantities of meat protein at certain stages in their growth, and the relationship between particular nutrients and the growth and physiology of the fish can be complex. Hence, producing appropriate compound feed involves a lot of research and development.

To quantify how efficiently a species is farmed, the aquaculture industry uses a ratio called Fish in:Fish out (FIFO). The closer the FIFO is to 1, the more fish meat is produced per unit of input; a score of 1 means an extra kilogram of fish used as feed results in an extra kilogram of fish to harvest.

A study published in 2020 shows a FIFO of almost 1 for salmon and trout, thanks to the use of compound feeds which require less fishmeal and fish oil. If only fish were used to feed those species, the FIFO figure would be similar to that of the yellow croaker – over 6, according to an upcoming paper co-authored by Zhang Wenbo, an assistant professor in the College of Fisheries and Life Science at Shanghai Ocean University. His research into conventional yellow croaker aquaculture in China found that the direct use of feed-grade fish is still the best option for the yellow croaker farmers. But Fang Qing told China Dialogue that a lot of feed-grade fish fed to yellow croaker goes uneaten, and ends up sinking to the seabed or rotting, causing pollution and increasing the risk of disease.

More compound feed use would help reduce FIFO numbers in two ways: by cutting use of feed-grade fish, and by increasing conversion ratios – that is, generating more fish growth per unit of feed.

Zhejiang is taking the lead in both those areas. Since 2016, the province has been shutting fishmeal factories during the closed season and restricting the percentage of feed-grade fish in the overall catch. This, combined with the use of compound feed, saw Zhejiang cut the use of feed-grade fish by 835,000 tonnes across 710,000 mu (474 square kilometres) of aquaculture farms during the 13th FYP period (2016-2020). “Previously, feed-grade fish were the primary feed for largemouth bass in Zhejiang. These last two years that’s almost all been replaced with compound feed.” The FIFO ratio for farmed largemouth bass in Zhejiang could come down to 1.5, half the national average for this species, according to 2016 calculations Zhang Wenbo contributed to.

But cutting back on feed-grade fish use in China won’t be easy. Fishers catch a wide range of fish with a wide range of gear. At the local level there is a lack of fisher associations that can impose rules on the sector, making management tricky. Zhejiang’s success can be ascribed to strong local regulations. “There are no successful [international] examples that China can apply,” said Fang Qing. Alongside legislation to bolster oversight of the feed-grade fish catch, he also suggests developing feeds which will be more palatable to fish, and labelling products according to their use of feed-grade fish or compound feed, so consumers can make an informed choice.

Increasing the efficiency of fish inputs

The use of compound feed isn’t the end of the story. At least for now, fishmeal and fish oil are essential ingredients in those feeds. And while the global supply of fishmeal and fish oil has fallen from its peak in 2000 to a fairly stable level, the demand for aquaculture feeds has been increasing. That requires the development of feeds containing less meal and oil.

Plans announced by Norway to boost salmon farming have led to concerns about the supply of fishmeal and fish oil as well as vegetable ingredients. The country has started researching the use of mesopelagic fish (which inhabit the middle depths of the ocean), algae and farmed insects to meet that need and make feed more efficient. A more complete solution would be to develop entirely vegetarian feeds, with no fishmeal at all. However, as things stand that would only be suitable for a few species.

“Fishmeal is the most expensive of the ingredients found in bulk feeds. Reducing the amount in those feeds is the best way to make them cheaper,” Zhang Wenbo points out. A tonne of fishmeal costs around 10,000 yuan (US$1,500), compared to 1,000–4,000 yuan for bran or soybean meal, he added. “Feed conversion ratios are also affected by the type of aquaculture, the make-up of the feed, and genetic selection – the breeding of strains more suited to compound feeds,” he said. This is more difficult in China, with its wide range of farmed species, than in Norway, where salmon dominates. But progress is still being made, and associated targets have been set in the 14th Five Year Plan (2021–25).

Increasing the efficiency of fishmeal and fish oil use in China will also ease global pressures on the supply and help protect juvenile fish. China is the world’s biggest consumer of fishmeal, with the largest part being used in aquaculture, and the second largest being fed to pigs. But the country only produces 400,000–700,000 tonnes of fishmeal a year – not even close to meeting domestic demand. Fishmeal imports have held steady since 2017, at about 1.4 million tonnes, but jumped to 1.82 million tonnes in 2021, with experts ascribing the change to the recovery in pig farming. The extra fishmeal came from the Americas and elsewhere in Asia.

Zhang Wenbo explains that China’s fishmeal and fish oil imports come from forage fish, caught specifically to be turned into fishmeal, and Peru is the main supplier. Relatively little of China’s fishmeal is made from feed-grade fish. “Imports of by-product processed fishmeal from Vietnam and Thailand have been increasing in recent years,” he said.

Minimizing the feed-grade fish catch

Cutting back on the use of feed-grade fish is good for the sustainable development of both wild fishing and aquaculture. It will also help protect already vulnerable ocean ecosystems. In 1959, fishing vessels in China’s Bohai Sea caught 420 kg of fish per net for every hour they worked. By 1993, that had fallen to 30 kg, and only 8 kg between 1998 and 2011. The above-mentioned research into China’s feed-grade fish catch found that a long-term stable total catch has masked trends including falling biomass and changes in end use.

The losses to biodiversity and ecological services cannot be measured in financial terms, and the fishing industry needs more than simply output. Wang Songlin, president and founder of the Qingdao Marine Conservation Society, believes the industry needs to work towards a balance of ecological, economic and social benefits. He told China Dialogue that even if total catch may still be the same by volume, the underlying destruction to the integrity of ecosystems and the environment should not be ignored.

Management of the sector in China has acquired a new ecological focus. Alongside the use of compound feeds, some provinces are providing fishery stewardship subsidies for the protection of rare and endangered species and for keeping down feed-grade fish catch volumes.

Protecting juvenile fish isn’t just a matter for China – it’s crucial for ocean ecosystems around the world. Rashid Sumalia said: “If you look at the economies and the ecology at the higher level, you don’t want to [catch feed-grade fish] because the losses are too high” to be sustainable. Sumalia acknowledges that many people rely on that fishing for their livelihoods but says: “We need to take it down as far as we can.”

Zhang Chun is a senior researcher at China Dialogue. This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

What are the purposes of adding pigments to the feed in salmon farms?

Common colorants, specifically astaxanthin and canthaxanthin, are added to farmed salmon feed to enhance the pink-red hue of fillets, mimicking wild salmon.

What are some of the additives that are added to salmon feeds in salmon farms?

What are the purposes of adding pigments to the feed in salmon farms?

Both are approved with strict maximum residue limits in the EU, Norway, and Canada.

Title:

Content: Sweets | The production of salmiakki lozenges sold in pharmacies stopped due to the EU regulation

The shortage of raw materials for salmia and licorice is related to a substance called matrin.

Helsinki Messages news last week popular The disappearance of UFO candies from bulk candy shelves. The availability problems of certain salmiak products recently have been caused by a shortage of raw materials.

Entrepreneur of Makeistukku Hardeco Finland, which imports UFO candies Harri Heiskanen said last week that the shortage of raw materials affected the factory’s production for about half a year. The CEO of Haganol, which manufactures Apteek salmiakki Jari Simola says that production has been at a standstill for about a year.

However, the shortage of raw materials does not affect all companies that manufacture salmiak products.

Situation is related, at least for Haganol, to the EU regulation and to a substance called matrine. It can be found in licorice powder, for example.

Since matrine has not been sufficiently studied, it must not be present in food sold in the EU practically at all.

Matrine can end up in licorice from plants in the Sophora genus, or it can come from pesticide use. From the point of view of potential health hazards, it is not important where the matrix residue comes from, says a special expert of the Food Agency Arja Heinonen From the Food Composition Division.

According to Heinonen, it is not possible to find out whether Laku’s matriline is from a plant or matriline derived from the use of pesticides. From the point of view of the law, it doesn’t matter where the residue comes from either, Heinonen says.

Residues of pesticides can be found in foodstuffs under official control or in the self-control of the food industry operator.

“It’s normal quality control by importers.”

Collar products has been made for a long time. For example, the production of Apteek salmia started already in 1951. Why has the matter related to matrine been relevant recently?

A few years ago, an EU member state inquired whether the EU’s pesticide residue regulation also applies to matrine,” says Tiia Mäkinen-Töykkä From the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes).

The EU Commission confirmed that matrine is subject to the maximum amount of residues in accordance with the pesticide residue legislation. According to it, there may be no more than 0.01 milligrams per kilogram of residues in the product.

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It is about the smallest amount that can be measured with any measurement method. If the product contains more than 0.01 milligrams of matrin per kilogram, the importer will withdraw it.

For example, licorice powder may contain matrine. The EU regulation is justified by the fact that matrine has not been studied sufficiently.

Even before matrine was listed in the EU pesticide database, its presence in foodstuffs was not allowed. Listing in the database clarified the matter.

Mäkinen-Töykkä says that the EU’s pesticide regulation defines as pesticide residues, for example, the residues of the active ingredients of plant protection products used in the EU or outside the EU in the past or currently.

“In some Asian countries, matrine is used as a plant protection agent”.

The EU has a system that allows member countries to exchange information on, for example, pesticide residues in food.

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Jari Simola says that Haganol used the same raw material in its products as a Danish confectionery manufacturer. When matriline was found in the Laku raw material it used, Haganol was also not allowed to sell its products.

However, Haganol’s shortage of raw materials is now easing. The company has received matrix-free licorice raw material. Simola says he paid 90 percent more for it than for the raw material he used before.

FazerilLA there has been no shortage of raw materials.

“We have not seen any availability challenges related to licorice flour,” the communication says.

“It is possible that the availability problem concerns other raw materials, for example ammonium chloride used in salmiaki. The market situation for ammonium chloride has been scarce, but we have avoided availability challenges with our cooperation relationships”.

Straits too and eating licorice is safe as long as you consume them in moderation, says Arja Heinonen, a special expert at the Food Agency.

“Even in the recommended diet, the proportion of sweets is small. If you eat a lot of them, other problems start to appear.”

#Sweets #production #salmiakki #lozenges #sold #pharmacies #stopped #due #regulation

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Antioxidants such as ethoxyquin are widely used to prevent fat oxidation in feed, but ethoxyquin’s safety is under review; the EU limits ethoxyquin to 50 µg/kg due to concerns over possible carcinogenicity and tissue accumulation.

Title:

Content: - A plus A.
Ibrahim Al-Alawi (Jeddah) i _ waleeed22 @
The Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) has launched a project to update the Gulf technical regulations for additives allowed to be used in foodstuffs.
The standard specified the conditions for the use of food additives, whether or not they had their own specification previously.
The standard includes foods where the use of food additives is not permitted or where the use of food additives is restricted, and the aim of setting maximum allowable use limits for food additives is to ensure that the intake of the additive does not exceed the acceptable daily dose.
The project showed the maximum use of food additive according to the highest permissible concentration to perform its desired purpose, and is safe and expressed in milligrams per kilogram of food substance. Food additives were interpreted as any substance intentionally added to food and not as a component, to maintain or improve food qualities and added for technical or nutritional purposes, whether during manufacturing, preparation, processing, packaging, transport or storage.
The substance itself or its by-products may become part of the food directly or indirectly.
The acceptable dose included daily intake (ADI), which is the amount of food additive estimated by the Joint Committee of Experts that can be consumed daily for the duration of life without any significant risk to health and estimated on the basis of body weight. The specification also included the maximum use of food additive according to the highest concentration allowed to be used to fulfill its desired purpose and be safe as determined by the Codex.
When polyols are used in food products for purposes other than sweetening by not more than 10%, it is not necessary to write the relevant warnings contained in the technical regulations and the additives allowed to be used in raw materials or other components according to this regulation, and the content of additives in raw materials or other components does not exceed the upper limit specified in this regulation.

What countries or jurisdictions have regulations concerning additives in salmon feed?

What health concerns are there specifically related to additives in farmed salmon feed?

Feed formulations may also include binding agents, such as plant-based gums or prebiotics, and flavor enhancers, while microalgae and certain novel binders are under evaluation.

Growth promoters—particularly hormones and beta-agonists—are prohibited in aquaculture across the EU, Norway, and China due to consumer health risk, with a global trend away from antibiotic growth promoters.

Title:

Content: National Taiwan Affairs Office again pointed out that two batches of Taiwan grouper fish containing banned drugs were rejected by the Fisheries Department: all tested are qualified
▲ The Fisheries Department stressed that the results of the inspection of the two companies named were all qualified.
(Photo / Data)
Journalist Hsu Chien-yi / reporting from Taipei
The General Administration of Customs of the Mainland recently informed two Taiwanese companies that two batches of grouper fish exported from mainland China were found to be revert peacock green and crystalline purple, and Zhu Fenglian, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office, said again (12) that this test contains banned drugs.
However, the AFCD responded that in order to determine whether the illegal use of drugs by operators and ensure the safety of consumption of the people, the results of sampling to the farms that may be involved in the case have not been inconsistent with the regulations.
Zhu Fenglian said that the stonefish test contains banned drugs, malachite green, invisible crystal purple, and the restricted drug oxytocin. These two drugs can be used in the fish environment for a long time, which is dangerous for mutagenicity and carcinogenicity, so they are banned in China and Taiwan.
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The Department of Fisheries and Conservation (AFD) said that after the report, in order to clarify whether the illegal use of drugs is illegal, and to review the supply and marketing links may be omitted, the staff of the Pingtung County government jointly went to the fish farm that may be involved in the case to conduct a sample delivery and test (restore) Peacock Green, Crystal Purple and other animal drugs. There is no evidence of illegal use of drugs.
AFCD mentioned that based on the scientific survey and tracking results, for the part of the operators involved that there are other farms in the same voyage, it has continued to track down the live fish boat operators to provide a list of other farms in the same voyage, and will work with the local government to control the movement of farms that may be involved in the case, and further follow-up investigation to clarify the case, and explain the case as soon as possible.
The Fisheries Agency said that grouper fish is an extremely important aquaculture industry in China, and domestic related aquaculture operators are very concerned about the quality of the production of grouper fish. In recent years, together with the Bureau of Prevention and Inspection and local governments, they are committed to correct drug promotion, unlisted production monitoring, etc., and in recent years, grouper fish has rarely been found in the market.
The case will continue to be investigated to clarify possible areas of concern.
In addition, if the domestic operators do have illegal use of drugs or other irregularities, they will be investigated and punished in accordance with the regulations to ensure the quality of Chinese grouper fish.
The AFCD further emphasizes that in order to ensure the safety of fish, Taiwan's fish are monitored before they are marketed, and will continue to do so in the future.
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What countries or jurisdictions have regulations concerning additives in salmon feed?

What countries or jurisdictions have regulations concerning antibiotics in farmes salmon?

Antibiotic use in salmon farming has dropped significantly; major producers like Norway, the EU, Chile, and Canada now allow only specific antibiotics (e.g., tetracycline, florfenicol) for disease treatment with veterinary oversight and enforced withdrawal periods.

What countries or jurisdictions have regulations concerning additives in salmon feed?

What countries or jurisdictions have regulations concerning antibiotics in farmes salmon?

Substances such as nitrofurans, chloramphenicol, and malachite green are explicitly banned.

Title:

Content: White moray in Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Market contains banned veterinary drugs!
It can cause cancer in China and the United States.
Author: XiLang Gu
Published: Updated:
The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) announced that a small amount of the banned veterinary drug nitrofuran metabolite has been detected in a white eel sample.
The center is following up the incident, and the food involved is no longer in stock and is believed to have been sold. Nitrofurans are banned in many countries and pose a biological carcinogenic risk.
White moray at Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Food Market with banned veterinary drugs (Photo)
White moray in Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Market with banned veterinary drugs: assessed
The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) announced recently (6th) that a white eel sample has detected traces of the banned veterinary drug nitrofuran metabolite.
A spokesman for the CFS said, "Through the regular food surveillance programme, the CFS took the above eel samples from a stall at the Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Food Market for testing.
The results showed that the nitrofuran metabolite content in the sample was 5.2 parts per billion. "
Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Food Market White Eel Contains Prohibited Veterinary Drugs (Online Photo)
According to the information provided by the merchant, the batch in question is no longer in stock. It is believed that the eels in question have been sold out.
CFS said they would trace the source and distribution of the food in question and would continue to follow up the incident and take appropriate action.
White eel test of veterinary drug nitrofuran can cause cancer in many countries such as China and the United States
Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Food Market White Eel Contains Prohibited Veterinary Drugs (Online Photo)
According to the Center for Food Safety, nitrofurans are a class of chemicals that have a wide range of antimicrobial properties.
Although current studies only confirm that the compound causes cancer in animals, there is insufficient evidence to prove that it causes cancer in humans. However, nitrofurans and their metabolites are still at risk for carcinogenic and teratogenic conditions in humans.
On 22 March 2010, the Ministry of Health of China added nitrofuran drugs to the blacklist of non-edible substances that may be added illegally.
Several countries (including European Union member states, the United States, Canada, Australia, etc.) have banned the use of food animals.
How to deal with the white eel?
The most important thing to do is dry!
Do white eels want to be treated well?
The eel eel is a good idea for many people, but many people cook the biggest thing is the liquid and fishy smell of their bodies. They want to deal with it. In addition to asking the fisherman to help, they can also easily solve the fish in the transparent bag. Remember that the water should not be too hot, otherwise it will cause the eel to break and affect the appearance.
After washing the eel, remember to dry the water thoroughly with kitchen paper. It is best to dry the eel until it is a little sticky. If it is not dry enough, it will leave a bad smell.
Related Article: How can a new eel be able to taste without smell?
Steamed Eel with Soy Sauce
Source: Centre for Food Safety / Centre for Food Safety (Nitrofuran)

Vitamin and mineral premixes are standard, typically including A, D, E, B-complex, C, zinc, selenium, phosphorus, magnesium, and iodine.

Heavy metals (arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium) and unauthorized additives are tightly regulated with mandatory residue screening.

Title:

Content: News of Hong Kong
The most toxic carcinogenic oysters of heavy metal Taishan oysters have a high risk of miscarriage of brain abnormalities.
Mercury over 30 times lead over 9 times
Hong Kong people love oysters, but oysters can accumulate viruses, bacteria and heavy metals.
The reporter purchased five samples of raw oyster from Hong Kong, the Mainland, France and Japan, and handed them to experts for examination of the heavy metals lead, cadmium, mercury (mercury) and arsenic. The results showed that apart from the heavy metals arsenic of Hong Kong oysters, the rest of the samples exceeded the standard. More than 9 times, the number is amazing.
The mercury content of the French sample was also more than 23 times higher. Doctors said that heavy metal accumulation can cause cancer. Long-term inhalation of mercury affects the nervous system and increases the risk of stillbirth and birth abnormalities in pregnant women.
Even if the oysters are thoroughly cooked, they cannot remove the heavy metals accumulated in the oysters.
Our reporter recently visited a number of markets and seafood stores in To Kwa Wan, Tai Po, Tsuen Wan and Fanling, and bought a total of five kinds of raw oyster samples, which were tested by experts for lead, cadmium, mercury (mercury) and arsenic content.
Three of these raw oyster samples must be cooked, and two claim to be ready for immediate consumption.
The samples that need to be cooked are purchased in different markets, and the samples purchased from Tsuen Wan are sold with shells, while the remaining two are sold with shells removed and then soaked in seawater in plastic bags or plastic boxes.
As for ready-to-eat samples, which are claimed to be from France and Japan respectively, the shop staff said that unless there is a large amount of seawater pouring out after opening the shell, they can be ready-to-eat without washing.
According to the Food Adulteration (Metallic Contamination) Regulation (Cap. 132V), there are specified standards for heavy metals in general seafood foods, with a statutory upper limit of 6 ppm for lead, 0.5 ppm for mercury (mercury), 10 ppm for arsenic and 2 ppm for cadmium.
Under the Regulation, the sale or transshipment of specified food exceeding the above standards is an offence and is liable to a fine at level 5, that is, $50,000, and to imprisonment for 6 months.
It also claims that the mercury content of ready-to-eat is too high.
The test results showed that apart from the local oyster samples purchased from To Kwa Wan Market, the arsenic was 3.8 ppm, which did not exceed the legal limit of 10 ppm, and all the other four heavy metals in the samples exceeded the standard (see table).
Among them, the most serious overdose is the one purchased from Tai Po Market, a mainland oysters labeled “Taishan Oysters ” with the highest mercury content of 15.5 ppm per 100 grams, which is 30 times above the standard.
The lead content in the same sample was also the highest, up to 9.4 times.
As for ready-to-eat French oysters, the mercury exceeded the standard by more than 23 times, and the lead content was the second highest, exceeding the standard by 7.9 times.
Locally-produced oysters have lower levels of heavy metals, with arsenic far below the legal limit, and Japanese oysters have lower levels of heavy metals.
Long-term inhalation of harmful substances, careful not to age
Family doctor Kwan Ka-mei pointed out that no matter whether cooked or raw oysters, there is no difference in the nature of human inhalation of heavy metals. Heavy metals rarely cause acute poisoning, but slowly accumulate in the body over the years. In recent years, it has been found that some people have not aged first, and there are elderly diseases such as Parkinson ’ s disease at the age of 40.
All of the above heavy metals are carcinogenic to long-term inhalation. Lead in them can damage the brain and nervous system, causing paralysis, limb weakness and even emotional anxiety.
As for mercury, it causes loss of appetite, muscle weakness, etc., long-term inhalation of pregnant women will increase the risk of abnormality and fetal mortality.
Cadmium can damage the kidneys, lead to kidney failure and proteinuria, high blood pressure and other symptoms.
Soak before cooking, hard to remove heavy metals
Ho Man Leung, a part-time science lecturer at the Hong Kong Institute of Higher Education and Technology (THEi), said oysters can easily accumulate viruses, bacteria and heavy metals and cannot be excreted.
Because oysters only absorb heavy metals and have an assimilation effect in the cells, they have remained in the cells. Therefore, generally cooked oysters can not remove heavy metals. It is recommended to soak them before consumption.
A CFS spokesman said that uncooked oysters are a high-risk food and people at high risk should avoid eating them.
However, if long-term consumption of food containing excessive heavy metals (including shellfish seafood) may affect physical health, CFS has issued food safety advice to provide information on the food safety risks of raw oysters to the public. The public and the trade are urged to take necessary precautions when eating or supplying raw oysters.
Journalist Lin Jianping
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Health concerns for consumers focus on bioaccumulation of chemical contaminants (heavy metals, PCBs, banned drugs) in fish, which can raise cancer and developmental risks with chronic exposure above regulatory limits.

Title:

Content: Whitewashing ‘Blue Food’ Won’t Make the World More Green

Recent public messaging encouraging people to eat more seafood conveniently omits information about the environmental impact of fishing.

Marine wildlife is in a state of global emergency. Ninety percent of fish populations are at or below half their historical levels, and more fish species appear on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species than any other class of animals. Since 1970 alone, global shark and ray populations have declined by more than 70 percent. The vaquita porpoise will be extinct in a matter of years, with the Māui dolphin and North Atlantic right whale likely following close behind. The primary driver of this aquatic extinction crisis is not climate change or plastic pollution but fishing, and conservation biologists around the world have warned that addressing this crisis requires overhauling traditional notions of fisheries management and implementing significant restrictions on catch limits.

Recently, however, calls have emerged not for less fishing, but more, under the banner of a new term encompassing all seafood and aquaculture products: “blue food.” The Blue Food Alliance, launched ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit, has brought together academics, policymakers, and corporate donors focused on increasing the consumption of sustainable seafood. The project was introduced with much fanfare, including a set of papers in the journal Nature Food, an editorial in its parent journal Nature, a number of well-placed op-eds by important academics and members of industry, and even a promotional video. According to the group’s report, titled “The Blue Food Assessment,” seafood and aquaculture often have lower environmental impact and provide greater nutritional benefits than terrestrial foods while contributing to food security, making it economically and ecologically sustainable.

But this blue-food narrative relies on generalizations and omissions that obscure the facts about the impacts of seafood. Just as harmful industries such as Big Oil and Big Livestock have promoted superficial production tweaks and embraced the language of sustainability, so too has the seafood industry. While the Blue Food Alliance boasts the membership of sustainability nonprofits like EAT, it also includes seafood titans like the Walton Family Foundation. As countless unsustainable industries claim to go green, public messaging on blue food bears all the hallmarks of a branding pivot—call it a “bluewash.”

It’s not that the message of this campaign and others like it are predicated on bad science, it’s that they deploy scientific claims selectively. In doing so, “The Blue Food Assessment” omits many of the harms of fishing and fish farming, and makes it seem far more sustainable than it actually is. Take the idea that consuming seafood is generally more environmentally friendly than eating land-based meat. To substantiate this, the authors use sustainability metrics from previous studies to score the greenhouse gas, nitrogen, and phosphorus emissions, as well as land and fresh water use, of various seafood and aquaculture products. This leads to the conclusion that these foods’ environmental impacts are lower than those of many agricultural products, particularly chicken, the least environmentally impactful industrially raised meat. The problem is that this is an apples-to-oranges comparison—it applies criteria designed for terrestrial agriculture to the oceans, while omitting environmental impacts specific to marine life. Eating wild fish may use virtually no land or freshwater, but it also depletes marine life populations, disrupts food webs, dredges up reefs and algal beds, and litters the ocean with ghost nets. The report is equally selective in its discussion of the health benefits of seafood. Fish may be rich in various vitamins and dietary minerals, but it can also be laden with microplastics and bioaccumulative toxins such as PCBs, PBDEs, and mercury. While these various shortcomings are acknowledged in some of the blue food manuscripts, they are all but absent from promotional materials, overstating the benefits of blue food while underplaying its shortcomings.

Specific claims aside, the nomenclature in this campaign is also concerning. While lumping all marine foods into the new category of “blue food” does little to facilitate comparison to other food groups, it does quite a bit to conflate species- and region-specific impact assessments. For example, while advocates boast that “the BFA assessment emphasizes the enormous diversity of blue foods,” the data are actually quite vague, with wide margins of error and broad categorizations like “miscellaneous marine fishes.” Even more problematically, this tactic also obscures the different producers and production processes within the seafood industry. For one thing, although it doesn’t explicitly advocate expanding industrial fishing, it is effusive about growing industrialized forms of fish production like aquaculture. But aquaculture does not take pressure off wild fisheries as much as it complements them, often requiring hundreds of wild-caught bait fish to feed a single farmed salmon or tuna. It also brings with it a range of risks and harms, including effluent pollution, mangrove deforestation, and viral proliferation both within aquaculture farms and spreading to wild fish. Yet “The Blue Food Assessment” recommends expansion of aquaculture despite these risks.

Even as they push for more aquaculture, blue food proponents do raise legitimate concerns about seafood being central to many cultures, food systems, and economies, especially among coastal communities in the Global South. However, while the BFA states that small-scale fishers haul in “over half the world’s fish catch,” reports indicate that subsistence fisheries account for less than 3 percent of the global catch and so-called “artisanal” fishing for another 20, meaning that three-quarters comes from industrial-scale operations like trawlers, seiners, and longliners that are widely condemned as unsustainable. By conflating industrial fishing practices that feed high-end consumers with subsistence fishing traditions, the blue food category creates needless confusion about the specific needs of coastal communities.

This follows a long history of using humanitarianism to disguise exploitation by the fishing industry. The Blue Food Alliance invokes human rights in the context of nutrition, but it omits the impacts of the aquaculture and fishing industries on marginalized peoples. Its press materials feature images of subsistence fishing communities hanging their catches to dry on modest clothing lines and selling them in hand-weaved baskets, a common marketing angle for seafood, used heavily by sustainability certification programs such as the Marine Stewardship Council. A recent analysis found that the MSC featured small-scale, low-impact fishing methods in roughly half of its promotional content, despite these methods representing only 7 percent of the products it certified.

The reality is that traditional fishing communities are the ones that suffer most from the impacts of the global fishing industry. But in “The Blue Food Assessment,” you won’t find photos of West African artisanal fishermen drowning in deep water after collisions with illegal supertrawlers, Salish chiefs decrying the cultural genocide of industrial herring extraction, or the tens of thousands people enslaved on up to a quarter of the global fishing fleet. The seafood industry wants its consumers to associate seafood with modest subsistence fishing traditions, but the truth is that the vast majority of seafood—and especially that which is sold in industrialized nations—is obtained by methods that pose a direct threat to those ways of life.

While the discourse around sustainable seafood can be heated, there are still fundamental solutions on which conservation biologists and fisheries scientists agree. As the renowned fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly puts it, “Fisheries issues are not difficult or intractable problems. We need to fish less and to create sanctuaries where fish populations can revive.” While policy should protect the food security and economic viability of coastal communities, especially in the Global South, it also must massively reduce subsidies and permits for both fishing and aquaculture and expand marine reserves to protect our marine ecosystems. Consumers should also be aware of the major impacts associated with consuming species like tuna at the top of food chains or those like crabs that live in sensitive ecosystems on the ocean floor, and realize that farmed fish aren’t necessarily low-impact either. Notably, the only “blue foods” with negative emissions impacts aren’t fish at all, but farmed algae and bivalves. However, the biggest environmental benefits of outplanting these species might be as building blocks for rewilding coastal ecosystems, which is also one of our most effective tools for drawing down atmospheric carbon. The truth is, transitioning to a sustainable food system will require people in industrialized nations to eat far fewer animals, both farmed and wild, terrestrial and aquatic.

However, rather than clarifying these diverse environmental stakes, the “blue food” narrative risks muddying the waters of the seafood sustainability debate by suggesting to consumers that a deeply destructive industry is actually sustainable, perhaps as an environmentally friendly alternative to factory-farmed meat. But it’s not that simple. The main beneficiaries of this sort of discourse are the big players in the fishing industry, who escape direct critique and benefit from a bluewashing bonanza that lifts all boats.

While the science underlying “The Blue Food Assessment” is reputable, its lens is narrow, removing blue food from the ecological context it comes from. The blue parts of our planet cycle our nutrients, stabilize our climate, produce half the oxygen in the air we breathe, and provide a home to millions of marine species—functions we risk disrupting if we value them simply as a source of food.

WIRED Opinion publishes articles by outside contributors representing a wide range of viewpoints. Read more opinions here, and see our submission guidelines here. Submit an op-ed at opinion@wired.com.

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Title:

Content: News of Hong Kong
Food safety breaks Guan's defenses and lives in Xiangjiang is difficult to health
Food for God's sake!
Working hard day after day, no more than for three meals, is to work part-time is often referred to as "finding food" by Hong Kong people. In return for the hard work of finding food, the quality of food is naturally important, not to mention the taste, at least to eat with peace of mind and eat healthily.
However, the Hong Kong government does not strictly control food safety, resulting in the frequent flow of problematic food exceeding safety standards into the market, endangering the health of the public.
Every time the media has to expose it, the authorities rush to remedy the problem, but the problem food has been eaten into the stomach of the public; if the health is affected by this, who should the public complain to?
This newspaper has been concerned about food safety issues for the public.
Reporters recently visited many districts, respectively, purchased 5 oysters, and handed them to experts to test their heavy metals lead, cadmium, mercury (mercury) and arsenic content, the results are eye-catching.
The five oysters came from different places of origin, namely, local, Shandong, Taishan, Guangdong, France and Japan. The arsenic content of local oysters samples did not exceed the legal limit in Hong Kong, but the other three types of oysters exceeded the standard.
The most serious situation is a mainland oysters purchased from Tai Po Hui Market and advertised as Taishan Oysters; although they are fat and appetizing, the lead content is about 9.4 times higher, the cadmium content is about 3.15 times higher, the arsenic content is about 1.06 times higher, and the mercury content is about 30 times higher, which is called "sugar-coated poison".
Although the four heavy metals detected by the reporter are common in shellfish, in general, as long as the content of heavy metals in the food meets the legal limit, the intake of small amounts of heavy metals from the food will not normally have any health impact. However, the heavy metal content of the five samples is not slightly exceeded, but can be calculated by multiples, and the nature is completely different. Damage to the nervous system, heart failure, or cancer.
What ’ s more, there are people who have not aged before and have developed geriatric diseases such as Parkinson ’ s disease in middle age, which is also suspected to be related to the accumulation of heavy metals in the body.
If pregnant women consume excessive amounts of heavy metals, it may affect fetal development and increase the risk of stillbirth and abnormality, which may affect the next generation.
In fact, there have been many cases of food poisoning after eating raw oysters in Hong Kong in the past. Therefore, Hong Kong people will handle raw oysters carefully and cook them as much as possible before eating them.
However, unlike bacteria and viruses, the heavy metals contained in seafood cannot be completely eliminated by washing or cooking.
Experts pointed out that after oysters absorb heavy metals, they will have an assimilation effect in the cells and remain in the cells. This means that no matter how carefully the public handle it, it is difficult to avoid the ingestion of heavy metals.
What is more frightening is that heavy metals rarely cause acute poisoning, but they accumulate in the body, causing people to slowly die without realizing it.
The only effective way to prevent the occurrence of tragedies is for the Hong Kong Government to closely guard against the influx of seafood with excessive heavy metal content into the market.
Food safety breaches in Hong Kong are not uncommon. From fish, beef and pork to dried fruit snacks, there have been problems, and most of them have been exposed by the media or the Consumer Council.
What is even more worrying is that the authorities can still blame the outdated and lack of supervision of the laws that have been uncovered in the past. However, seafood containing heavy metals has long been a commonplace, and there are relevant laws and standards in Hong Kong.
When the government cannot provide protection, who can the citizens rely on?
How can we talk about food with peace of mind?
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