I returned from Colombia yesterday and I'm still processing what I saw. For years we warned that this could happen, but witnessing it firsthand is something else entirely. The current state of the Colombian Hass avocado is not only complex: it marks a turning point for the entire industry.

Colombia entered the Hass market as a young and enthusiastic country, with experience in green-skinned varieties, but lacking the technical expertise required for a product destined for Europe. Hass demands rigorous agronomy, soil management, professional nurseries, consistent pruning, and impeccable post-harvest handling. This standard was not met, and the consequences are visible in every valley.

What's most striking is the image: abandoned farms, yellowing trees, weeds covering the orchards in Antioquia, Quindío, and Caldas. Projects that once promised prosperity are now dead or dying. The last harvest of the "traviesa" fruit—which coincides with the Peruvian window—was devastating: many producers received no payment; others earned a mere 60 cents, the same as selling on the domestic market, but with fruit that arrived damaged or never arrived at all. This economic damage was followed by something even worse: the loss of reputation for the "Colombian avocado," now associated with small, pale green, weak fruit with an excessively short shelf life. In Europe, it's already known that, with sufficient supply, Colombia is the last resort.

The fruit reveals what's happening inside the tree. Round fruit with weak stems predominates, showing signs of stress. These are aging trees, unpruned, lacking ventilation, with deteriorated roots and dense foliage that, in a humid and cloudy climate like Colombia's, end up dying from within. But I also saw the opposite: orchards managed with aggressive pruning, complete nutrition, young plantings, and good ventilation. That fruit is completely different: dark green skin, large size, pear shape, and a competitive post-harvest life. Colombia can produce quality fruit, but it requires a profound technical shift.

The mistakes that explain this situation are clear. Hass avocados were planted at altitudes where they don't perform well—above 2,300 and even up to 2,500 meters—affected by cloud cover and cold. Many orchards were established without tilling the soil; when two consecutive years of rain arrived, the soil became waterlogged, Phytophthora appeared, and thousands of plants died. Nurseries were a critical point: weak, local rootstocks, poorly executed grafts, heterogeneous genetic material, and inadequate sanitation. Added to this were poor nutrition, dense foliage that multiplied pests and diseases, low planting density in a country with high natural mortality, and a lack of floral management that left growers completely vulnerable to the midsummer drought, one of the most economically damaging seasons.

The consequences are plain to see. Land prices have plummeted, farms are for sale everywhere, and many investors are abandoning the business. The fear now is that abandoned orchards will become breeding grounds for pests and diseases, potentially affecting even those who are still working the land properly.

Paradoxically, this scenario presents a new opportunity. After five years of painful learning, for the first time there is a clear protocol for producing competitive Hass avocados in Colombia: where to plant, how to manage soils, which rootstocks work, what densities to use, how to train the trees, how to nourish them, and how to manipulate the flowering to achieve the most profitable times.

Exporters will return. Financing will return. But the industry will be smaller, more selective, and more demanding. Those who remain—or those who enter now, counter-cyclically—will have an advantage that didn't exist before.

The boom is over. Now the professional stage begins.
And those who stay to build it will be the ones who reap the future.