Fifteen years ago there was almost no market for avocados in India, remembers Sunil Bopaiah.

Ripe fruit would fall off trees and be eaten by dogs, earning avocados the unappetising name dog fruit, he says.

Bopaiah has been working in India’s plantation industry for 26 years, he’s currently group manager at Cottanad Plantations, which grows cocoa, rubber, coffee, spices and fruits, including avocado, in the hills of Wayanad in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

“We never planted avocado as our main crop. We introduced it as a shade tree for coffee plantations, and only later realised it could become a profitable business,” he says.

He says the turning point was around 2011 when Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty said she used avocado for skincare.

“Overnight, prices doubled and then kept rising,” he says.

Cottanad has responded to that demand by planting avocado trees on 40 acres. Last year they harvested between 10 and 15 tonnes of fruit. In three of four years time they hope to raise that to 40 to 50 tonnes.

There’s been a lot to learn.

“We completely changed the way we grow avocados after learning from South African experts. Today we use raised beds, wider spacing and different planting methods because avocado roots are highly vulnerable to diseases,” Bopaiah says.

There’s plenty of scope for Indian farmers to step-up production.

“When we studied the market, we found a huge gap between demand and supply. India imports around 15,000 tonnes of avocados every year, while domestic production is only about 8,000–9,000 tonnes,” says Manilal Palliyath who helps promote India’s avocado industry.

He sees a big opportunity for farmers, particularly as traditional crops have suffered.

“Coffee and pepper have suffered because of changing climatic conditions, making diversification essential for farmers.”

While demand is growing in India, it’s not always for locally grown fruit.

“Indian-grown avocados are improving and there are some great farmers working with local varieties, but the quality and availability can vary significantly depending on the season and region,” says Hussain Shahzad, the executive chef at Hunger Inc. Hospitality.

The group owns four restaurants in Mumbai, including Veronica’s and The Bombay Canteen.

“We have explored different varieties of avocados available in India, but the imported ones currently offer the consistency we need in terms of flavour, texture, size, and ripening,” he says

But like many in the catering industry, he would like to source ingredients locally.

“We are always interested in exploring better local produce as it evolves. Supporting Indian agriculture and working with indigenous ingredients is central to how we approach food.”

Matching the quality and consistency of imported fruit is the goal of some Indian entrepreneurs.

Harshit Godha is the founder of Indo-Israel Avocado Nursery in Bhopal, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

He founded the nursery business in 2021, after spending a month in Israel learning about the industry.

Since then, business has been brisk. Over the last five years Godha has supplied around 18,000 avocado plants to farmers across India.

All of the saplings are international varieties like Hass and Pinkerton.

“Israel grows avocados on approximately 13,000 hectares – a small country with almost no rainfall for eight months of the year. This is precisely why Israeli avocado technology is the most advanced in the world,” Godha says.

Getting a commercial orchard up and running is not easy. It is a very different operation from the traditional way of cultivating avocados in India, where they were planted among other crops for shade.

For a start, you can’t just grow a tree from seed. A commercial tree comprises a rootstock, chosen for its tolerance to local conditions, grafted to the upper half which determines what sort of fruit is produced.

Once that’s done the trees need a lot of attention.

“When you put in a professional orchard, you have to know the techniques of pruning. A tree can grow up to 25 feet within six to seven years, and harvesting at 25 feet is next to impossible,” Godha says.

“Aggressive” pruning is needed to keep the harvest at a height that’s convenient for workers.

On top of that an avocado tree cannot easily pollinate itself. To get fruit two different varieties of avocado trees have to be planted right next to each other. One variety needs to be open as a female at the exact same time the other variety is releasing pollen as a male.”

“If a farmer gets this planting ratio wrong, the trees will fail to produce fruit, no matter how advanced the irrigation tech is. This single botanical detail is what separates a highly profitable, high-yielding orchard from one that looks great on paper but fails in reality,” says Godha.

Using popular foreign varieties is one way of modernising India’s avocado industry. Another is improving trees that have in India for generations.

“The biggest issue with the avocado trees in India are that every backyard tree is genetically different,” says Dr Ganeshan Karunakaran, the principal scientist at the ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bengaluru.

“That is why Indian markets are flooded with mixed fruit of varying quality. Standard varieties are essential if we want a reliable commercial market.”

For 25 years he has been working on a breeding project which has released two varieties, based on local trees.

“Our objective is to provide farmers with uniform, high-yielding, good-quality planting material rather than thousands of different unnamed trees,” Karunakaran says.

He is also concerned about unregulated nurseries selling unidentified, or diseased plants.

“Farmers may unknowingly buy diseased plants. The trees may look healthy initially, but after five or seven years they can suddenly die, causing huge financial losses,” he says.

Despite the challenges, farmers see the potential in switching to avocado cultivation.

Shiju Sebastian was an early adopter. Eight years ago he dedicated two acres of his farm in Wayanad Kerala, to the crop.

“Farmers are willing to grow avocados, but they need proper guidance and assured markets,” he says.

This year he’s harvesting 3,500kg of the fruit, all of which is sold in the city of Bengalaru.

“Avocado will never fail you. It’s such a loving and lovable fruit. I have fallen in love with this fruit now. I’m planning to plant another three acres — only avocado.”