Avocado Prices in the US between 2015 - 2018
THE CONTEXT
Student Project
November - December 2020
The United States is the second-largest producer of avocados after Mexico. About 90% of avocado production in the United States takes place in California, and the remaining 10% is produced in Florida and Hawaii. Avocados have become more abundant in the U.S. due to a large increase in avocado imports.
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Avocado prices have rocketed in recent years by up to 129%, with the average national price of a single Hass avocado reaching $2.10 in 2019, almost doubling in just one year. The resources needed to produce almost 200 million pounds of avocados are the reason for avocados' elevated prices. 200 million pounds could require as much as 54 billion liters of water, which means droughts or heatwaves can have devastating consequences on the avocado industry.
To view the interactive webpage, click here.
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Exploratory Data Analysis
Why I chose this data:
When I moved to the US, a friend once told me about Avocados and their health benefits, which I was unaware of earlier. I have loved Avocados ever since then! I love the creamy and rich texture of this fruit and I innovate dishes using avocados in my kitchen; on toasts, salads, and smoothies. Recently, I've become so fond of avocados, that I started using avocado lotions, body wash, and also avocado oil for cooking. However, as a student, I do not indulge in them too often because they are so expensive.
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I lived in California for about 8 months before I moved to Boston, and I realized the differences in cost of avocados for both organic and conventional types in both places. I was unable to really judge the reasons for the steep prices. Therefore, I have decided to study the pattern of Avocado prices in various regions of the United States from 2015 to 2018.
The Dataset
The above dataset on avocado prices is sourced from Kaggle. This dataset scans data for National Retail Volume (units) and price. The Average Price (of avocados) in the table reflects a per unit (per avocado) cost, even when multiple units (avocados) are sold in bags. It gives us weekly average price and volume for 50 regions & cities from 2015 to 2018 for two types of avocados –– organic and conventional.
How I wanted to clean, parse and refine my data:
This dataset has multiple variables and I wanted to visualize my data through a lollipop chart. To be able to show avocado prices for two types, in the years 2015 and 2018, across 14 regions, I had to flatten my dataset and simplify it using hierarchical nesting in Javascript in order to append the shapes in my SVG.
A simple flowchart that shows how I imagined my data to be simplified
Based on the above flowchart, the array of the dataset was simplified by grouping and nesting in Javascript & D3 to deduce the average avocado price for every city/region and for every year, for both organic and conventional avocados.
This is how the data structure looks, and it can further be used to create visualizations.
Choosing 16 Regions from the dataset based on Geography
For this visualization, I chose 4 regions/cities from each region - Mid-West, North-East, South, and West. The strategy was to study the patterns of Avocado prices by grouping them based on regions since the differences in prices are mainly due to the location. The closer the states are to the cultivation and production sites, the cheaper their prices are per unit.
Prices of Conventional and Organic Avocados in 2015 & 2018
Below is a Lollipop chart that I constructed using D3 and JS. This shows the average price difference between avocados sold in 2015 and 2018 for both organic and conventional type. The y-axis of the chart shows the region/cities in the order of South, North-East, Mid-west, and West from top to below, while the x-axis shows the average price of avocado in US dollars.
Organic and Conventional Avocado Prices in Boston: 2015-2018
Below is a Line Chart made using D3.js with a data-update pattern. Each year shows the fluctuations in avocado prices over 52 weeks for Boston. Particularly, I chose Boston as I live here currently and would love to study the pricing patterns because I love avocados, and this will make me more conscious about economical avocado shopping in Boston in the coming years.
However, this dataset consists of data only up to March 2018 and hence we will see a shorter line for 2018.
To view the interactive webpage, click here.
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