Jalisco, which has 22,000 hectares planted with avocado crops, is Mexico's second biggest producer of this product, only after Michoacan, and plans to continue growing based on irrigation technology.

The director of the Association of Avocado Producing Exporters of Jalisco (Apeajal), Ignacio Gomez Arregui, said that the state had only 1,000 hectares planted with avocado in the year 2000. In this sense, he said, the cultivated area has had an average annual growth rate of 21.3% in the past 16 years.

"The sector has been growing strongly, particularly in Jalisco. There has been a strong investment in terms of irrigation technology and plant densities are higher," said Gomez Arregui. "There have been investments, including foreign investment, made in very original packaging. This has helped to change the sector's face a little, especially to the south and southeast region of Jalisco, as it has generated a lot of well-paid jobs," he said during a meeting with researchers from the Center for Economic and Social Research (CIES) of the Autonomous University of Guadalajara.

At the meeting, the head of the CIES, Pablo Leon Madariaga, said that the organization was developing an Analysis of the avocado's value chain with a focus on its competitiveness. The director of Apeajal said that the study would allow them to know what course the sector should follow in the coming years.

According to data from Apeajal, in 2016 Jalisco produced 120,000 tons of avocado, 62,000 of which were exported. Of the total sales abroad, 30% was sent to Canada, 30% to Europe and a similar percentage was exported to Japan; while the remaining 10 percent was sold to Central and South America, Hong Kong, and the Middle East.

Obstacles in the United States

11 months after the export of Jalisco's avocado to the United States was announced, the US still hasn't allowed the purchase of the fruit produced in Jalisco.

"We're very interested in this market because of its proximity and because of the consumption levels that it has been developing," said Gomez Arregui. However, he said, even though they continued negotiations with the neighboring country, producers and exporters continued to grow in other international markets.

Currently, avocado production generates 9,000 direct and 20,000 indirect jobs in Jalisco.

Jalisco's avocado production is concentrated in 12 municipalities that have been certified as pest free. The most outstanding are Zapotlan El Grande, the Valley of Juarez, Tapalpa, Mazamitla, and La Manzanilla de la Paz.