Forecasting Weekly Shipments of Hass Avocados from Mexico to the United States Using Econometric and Vector Autoregression Models

Domestic production cannot meet the U.S. demand for avocados, satisfying only 10% of the national demand. Due to year-round production and longer shelf-life, the Hass variety of avocados accounts for about 85% of avocados consumed in the United States and roughly 95% of total avocado imports, primarily from Mexico. Using weekly data over the period July 3, 2011, to October 24, 2021, econometric and vector autoregression models are estimated regarding the seven main shipment sizes of Hass avocados from Mexico to the United States. Both types of models discern the impacts of inflation-adjusted and exchange-rate adjusted prices per box as well as U.S. disposable income, holidays and events, and seasonality on the level of Hass avocado shipments by size. In general, these impacts are robust across the respective models by shipment size. These types of models also mimic the variability in the level of shipments by size quite well based on goodness-of-fit metrics. Based on absolute percent error, these models provide reasonably accurate forecasts of the level of Hass avocado shipments from Mexico by size associated with a time horizon of 13 weeks. But neither type of models provides better forecast performance universally across all avocado shipment sizes.