The suspension of avocado imports from Mexico has to do with a threat a safety inspector in Mexico received, as avocado exports are becoming the latest victim of the drug cartel turf battles.
Avocados for sale at the Trader Joe's Upper East Side Bridgemarket grocery store in New York, U.S. Photographer: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesMexico has acknowledged that the U.S. government has suspended all imports of Mexican avocados after a U.S. plant safety inspector in Mexico received a threat., the biggest sales opportunity of the year for Mexican avocado growers — though it would not affect game-day consumption since those avocados had already been shipped.
"U.S. health authorities ... made the decision after one of their officials, who was carrying out inspections in Uruapan, Michoacan, received a threatening message on his official cellphone," the department wrote. The association did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ban, which hits an industry with almost $3 billion in annual exports. However, avocados for this year's Super Bowl had already been exported in the weeks prior to the event.Because the United States also grows avocados, U.S. inspectors work in Mexico to ensure exported avocados don’t carry diseases that could hurt U.S. crops.
It is not the first time that the violence in Michoacan — where the Jalisco cartel is fighting turf wars against a collection of local gangs known as the United Cartels — has threatened avocados, the state's most lucrative crop. The USDA wrote in a letter at the time that, "For future situations that result in a security breach, or demonstrate an imminent physical threat to the well-being of APHIS personnel, we will immediately suspend program activities."
Mexican prosecutors said Edgar Flores Santos was killed by drug traffickers who may have mistaken him for a policeman and a suspect was arrested. The U.S. State Department said investigations "concluded this unfortunate incident was a case of Mr. Flores being in the wrong place at the wrong time."The avocado ban was just the latest threat to Mexico's export trade stemming from the government's inability to rein in illegal activities.
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