MEXICO CITY (Washington Insider Magazine) – Following a threat received by an American plant safety inspector visiting Mexico, Mexico has announced that all avocado imports from the United States have been suspended.
The unanticipated halt was discovered on Saturday, the day of the Super Bowl, the greatest selling chance of the year for Mexican avocado farmers.
According to NBC NEWS, avocado exporting is the latest victim of drug cartel territorial fights and extortion of avocado growers in Michoacan, Mexico’s sole fully recognized state for exporting to the US market.
According to Mexico’s Department Of Agriculture, the US authorities have suspended all importing of Mexican avocados “until further notice” after receiving a threatening communication from a US plant safety officer in Mexico.
The embargo was issued on the same day that the Mexican Avocado Producers and Packers Association unveiled their Super Bowl advertisement for 2019. Mexican producers have been paying for the costly advertisement for over a decade in an effort to make guacamole a Super Bowl custom.
This year’s promo has Julius Caesar and a rowdy group of gladiator fans outside what appears to be the Colosseum, with avocados and guacamole settling their purportedly violent disagreements.
Avocados are farmed in both Mexico and the United States, therefore inspectors from the U.S. come to Mexico to assure that avocados exported are indeed totally free of bacteria and viruses that could affect American harvests.
The prohibition on Mexican avocados, which had been in place since around 1914 to prevent a variety of pests, weevils, and scabs out of American orchards, was finally lifted in 1997.
Inspectors are employed by the US Department of Agriculture’s Plant and Animal Health Inspection Services.
Avocados, the state’s most valuable crop, have previously been endangered by turmoil in Michoacan, where the Jalisco cartel is fighting a group of local gangs known as the United Cartels for territory.
Many avocado growers in Michoacan report that drug lords threaten them or their families with kidnapping or killing unless they pay outrageous protection fees per acre.
On September 30, 2020, a Mexican APHIS official was assassinated in the northern border region of Tijuana.
Drug traffickers killed Edgar Flores Santos after confusing him for an officer, according to Mexican officials, and a suspect was apprehended.
The avocado ban was only the most recent example of the government’s inability to manage unlawful behavior threatening Mexico’s export business.
