diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 483b0f9595dd98d160e28f366184eb3ce9107f19..3ea989a082b2a3e30facd4c1a4c13a3a4dc86c91 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -542,6 +542,17 @@
             <artifactId>hadoop-client</artifactId>
             <version>2.0.0-mr1-cdh${cdh.version}</version>
           </dependency>
+          <!-- Specify Avro version because Kafka also has it as a dependency -->
+          <dependency>
+            <groupId>org.apache.avro</groupId>
+            <artifactId>avro</artifactId>
+            <version>1.7.1.cloudera.2</version>
+          </dependency>
+          <dependency>
+            <groupId>org.apache.avro</groupId>
+            <artifactId>avro-ipc</artifactId>
+            <version>1.7.1.cloudera.2</version>
+          </dependency>
         </dependencies>
       </dependencyManagement>
     </profile>
diff --git a/repl/pom.xml b/repl/pom.xml
index 2fc96929698c6a7e853ef081995dcd0d710839c2..2dc96beaf55fe83b8e2f80f3cd7a1e7c9ca92bde 100644
--- a/repl/pom.xml
+++ b/repl/pom.xml
@@ -175,6 +175,16 @@
           <artifactId>hadoop-client</artifactId>
           <scope>provided</scope>
         </dependency>
+        <dependency>
+          <groupId>org.apache.avro</groupId>
+          <artifactId>avro</artifactId>
+          <scope>provided</scope>
+        </dependency>
+        <dependency>
+          <groupId>org.apache.avro</groupId>
+          <artifactId>avro-ipc</artifactId>
+          <scope>provided</scope>
+        </dependency>
       </dependencies>
       <build>
         <plugins>