National Avocado Cluster calls on government to implement a comprehensive plan to foster the sustainable growth of the industry
The Dominican Republic is seeing an erosion in its participation in the international avocado market and will continue to lose market share unless drastic action is taken. This was the stark message from a recent meeting of the National Avocado Cluster, which called on the government, producers and academies to come up with a national plan to foster the sustainable growth of the industry.
There are around 25,000ha of avocado plantings in the Dominican Republic with exports reaching US$97.2mn in 2023.
As reported in local newspaper Hoy, the president of the National Avocado Cluster, Juan Celestino, highlighted the vital role avocados play in Dominican culture, noting that country has the highest per capita consumption in the world at 50kg.
The Cluster is calling for a comprehensive plan to improve production processes in the face of growing competition from large-scale producers like Mexico, Peru and Colombia, which are edging the Dominican Republic out of its main market, the US. It wants the government to invest in technical assistance to improve the quality of production, as well as provide improved credit lines to producers.
It has also asked for the Autonomous Universities of Santo Domingo (UASD) and Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña (UNPHU) to make their laboratories available to that sector so that it can develop biotech solutions for the control of pests, along with new clones.
Finally, the cluster has called for the National Statistics Office to carry out a census and create a digital map of the country’s avocado production that can be used as the basis of a future plan of action for the sector.
