New Zealand avocado farmers arm themselves against opportunists and organised crime in fully fledged fruit war
- With global demand for avocados growing every year, New Zealand’s farmers are forced to fight to keep their fruit from ending up on the black market
It was the wrong side of dawn when the makeshift alarm sounded, its shrill whirr slicing through the frigid winter night. Ashby Whitehead sprang from his bed and ran to his ute, hoping that his homemade booby traps had finally paid off.
“I’d set up surveillance systems, a car alarm and tripwires but when it came down to it I wasn’t fast enough to catch them,” says Whitehead, an avocado grower whose orchards have been targeted five years in a row.
“It has moved on from opportunists to organised crime – they’re not scared any more, they’re so brazen, its just like money growing in the trees.”
The global lust for avocados is driving a crime wave in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty, where orchards line the state highway heavy with fruit – and largely unprotected.
Sold on the black market for a dollar apiece, thieves can easily pick thousands of dollars’ worth of fruit in one night. As demand has soared, gangs with links to organised crime in the nation’s biggest city are using increasingly sophisticated methods to target the superfood, including scouring satellite images on Google Earth to identify unsecured orchards.
There’s a growing nervousness among growers – the thieves are getting bolder and pushing the limits
On the back of the fruit’s trendy reputation – and its popularity with millennials – New Zealand’s industry is undergoing a phenomenal growth spurt, rising from a net worth of NZ$70 million (US$45.8 million) in 2013 to NZ$198 million in 2017. In the off-season, avocados can sell for NZ$7.50 each in New Zealand supermarkets. But the avocado has become a victim of its own popularity, forcing farmers to take the law into their own hands to protect their crop.