A few weeks ago I came across an article in the Japan Times with a headline that stopped me: “Avocado farming is taking root in Japan.”
At first glance, that sounds like just another quirky ag story — Japan already grows plenty of oddities in its soil: square watermelons, $100 melons, even wasabi in remote mountain streams. So why not avocados?
But the real story here isn’t the fruit. It’s the weather.
The Fruit of Global Warming
Avocados, as any Californian will tell you, need warmth — lots of it. They’re famously fussy about cold snaps, and their shallow roots don’t love wind or frost. Until recently, that made most of Japan off-limits for commercial avocado production. You might be able to baby one along in a greenhouse, but open-field farming? Not a chance.
Now, it’s not just possible: it’s starting to look profitable.
Kyushu is leading the charge, with farmers in Miyazaki and Kagoshima harvesting healthy fruit from open fields. Even parts of Shikoku and Wakayama are testing the waters. And these aren’t flavorless mushballs either; Japanese growers, being Japanese, are zeroed in on taste and texture. One farmer even said his avocados have a creamy umami that’s missing from the imports. (Of course he said that. This is Japan.)
Importing Trouble
Right now, Japan imports over 99% of its avocados — mostly from Mexico, Peru, and the U.S. Demand has skyrocketed here, just like everywhere else. Sushi shops do avocado rolls, cafés serve avocado toast, and housewives inspect each one at the store as they look for perfection.
But that’s a lot of food mileage for something so delicate. Avocados bruise if you look at them funny, and they ripen unpredictably. Importing them at scale is a logistical nightmare that burns serious fossil fuel. So in a weird twist, growing them locally might actually reduce emissions — if only a little.
The irony, of course, is that the very climate change that made this possible is also what’s pushing the rest of the food system closer to the edge.
A Canary with Green Skin
What I keep coming back to is this: Japan growing avocados is kind of like a canary singing in the coal mine. But… is it a warning chirp telling us the weather is about to kill us, or a smug little tune along the lines of: “Hey look! We’re finally warm enough to grow trendy foreign fruit!”[1]
What we don’t always say aloud is the part that comes next: because it’s not getting cold anymore.
Frost days are disappearing in large swaths of southern Japan. Weather patterns have shifted. And these aren’t just weird years. They’re the new normal. This is the climate we have now. And every success story — like avocados — carries a hidden cost beneath the surface.
Because if the warm-weather crops are thriving, what does that mean for the cold-weather ones?
That line of thought was expressed absolutely perfectly in this comic by Sarah Anderson:
Her Website if you want to read more from her
The Future of “Made in Japan” Produce
The optimistic take is that farmers are adapting. Japan’s rice industry is shrinking, but fruit (both traditional and new) is booming. Persimmons, citrus, strawberries, and now even avocados may become viable export crops again. We might even see a new kind of washoku that folds them in: avocado ochazuke? Donburi with wasabi guac?
But it’s hard to shake the deeper discomfort. Japan’s turning tropical. That’s exciting, in a way, but deeply unsettling in another. You don’t notice the climate changing all at once. You notice it when you walk into a fruit stand and see something you never used to see, grown just down the road, nestled in between the mikan and the yuzu.
New Normal, right? But pessimism will get us nowhere, so let’s look at the good side and see what Japan does with avocados if this farming trend grows!
Anyway, here is a news story on this subject if you want to read more: As Japan warms, avocados emerge as an unlikely savior for farmers
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I suppose the 40 degree summers and 90% humidity days are already enough of a warning of the weather being out for us. So we’ll say the avocado thing is the latter. ↩
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David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Mastodon. |