Hence, the uncashed checks.

Avocados grow at Ridgecrest Avocados in Somis, Calif., on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)Avocados grow at Ridgecrest Avocados in Somis, Calif., on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

California farmers grow about 10% of the avocados eaten in the United States, Melban said, and account for nearly all of the country’s domestic avocado production. The fruit is largely grown in California from April through September, and Mexican imports arrive year-round to meet nationwide demand, which exceeds what the state’s farmers grow, he said.In Southern California’s Ventura County, many growers have shifted to avocados since lemon prices were walloped by. As recently planted trees start bearing fruit in a few years, the region’s avocado production is likely to rise, said Korinne Bell, agricultural commissioner for the county northwest of Los Angeles.

Avocado trees do not come without risks in a region prone to wildfires.Still, demand for the trees has jumped due to interest from lemon growers — and since the

charred Ventura County avocado orchards, said Rob Brokaw, whose family-owned nursery has supplied avocado trees to California growers for 70 years.

“Right now we are sold out essentially for this year,” Brokaw said. “And we’re mostly sold out for 2026.”In recent weeks, U.S. consumers have seen high-profile food recalls for an unappetizing reason: They’re contaminated with foreign objects that have no place on a dinner plate. And while no one wants to bite down on

in smoked sausage, this type of contamination is one of the top reasons for food recalls in the U.S.Food safety experts and federal agencies use the terms “extraneous” or “foreign” materials to describe things like metal fragments, rubber gaskets and bits of bugs that somehow make it into packaged goods.

“Extraneous materials” triggered nine recalls in 2022 of more than 477,000 pounds of food regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service — triple the number of recalls tied to food contaminated with toxic E. coli bacteria.And the size of recalls can reach into the millions: In 2019, USDA reported 34 recalls of more than 16 million pounds of food, spurred in large part by a giant recall of nearly