Colombia: Hass area surpasses 18,000 hectares in just 3 years

"As a country, Colombia is just beginning to export Hass avocados. This business started 10 years ago, and in the last 3 years the hectares have increased to more than 18,000. Our advantage is that we have a good availability of water, tropical conditions that allow us to have several blooms per year, and we have good resources available in the ground, which meets the crop's requirements. All these conditions are beneficial to produce a fruit that tastes good, has good calibers, and a good quality," said Jose Ilber Montealegre, President of AsoHass.

In the first half of this year, Colombia exported more than 4,500 tons of avocado and we expect to become a major global supplier of avocado in the next four years.

AsoHass currently has 63 producers with a total of 120 hectares planted. "This year we produced about 350 tons in the 50 hectares we have in production; the other 70 will be active in the coming months," he said.

"In the second half of the year we hope to export around 250 tons and allocate 70 tons for the market nationally. In general, we have had a good season, but over the last few months we have had very volatile weather, so the fruit's presentation has been slightly affected. Only a minimum quantity was affected, but we would like to be able to export it all," said Jose Ilber.

"We hope that the negotiation process with the FARC and the ELN comes to an agreement soon so that there is peace in Colombia and the agricultural sector can receive important resources and the socio-economic well-being of our farmers can improve," said Montealegre.

We hope that, with the support of the municipality of Pereira and Asohofrucol, we'll have 30 producers with Global GAP certification by December 31.

"Our main goal is to produce clean fruit safely, always thinking about taking care of the environment, our native forests, using rain collectors, and always thinking about the well-being of our partners, workers, and the communities. The Association is a source of work, it creates an average of 250 direct jobs and 300 indirect ones. We think it would be important to link an international NGO to this project, which, together with the other 7 Hass Avocado-producing associations in the Department, would improve the social welfare of some 400 small producers," stated Montealegre. 

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