The avocado is a staple in Mexico, where it grows in abundance across the country. However, its growing popularity has also made the fruit a lucrative target for criminal organizations. Cartels are moving into the industry to take control of production, and profit from traders who want to sell their produce at affordable prices.
While this phenomenon is interesting, albeit sometimes macabre, it has rather simple roots. The cartel’s involvement in the avocado industry can be traced back to 2006, as a part of their response to Mexico's war on drugs, a movement helmed by former president Felipe Calderón. The movement led to a great amount of bloodshed, and ended in a victory for the state. While the state could not get rid of the cartels, or the drug trade, it broke down major cartels, and enforced strict laws that successfully limited drug smuggling. This in turn had a huge impact on the cartels’ income, which led them to resort to legalizing a good bit of their operations. Cartels permeated almost every part of civil society, opening hotels, resorts, bars, nightclubs et al. A lot of these institutions continue to thrive today.
Mexico is the world's leading avocado producer, with the state of Michoacán accounting for three-fourths of avocados produced in the country. The terroir favors the fruit, thereby boosting margins, which is what attracted the cartel. The US is the world's largest importer of avocados, seeing a whopping 3.1 billion dollars of the fruit being flown in annually, with Mexican avocados making up a sizable 92% of total imports.
The cartel controls supply by employing a wide range of methods. The most lucrative one of the lot being extortion: the cartel ‘taxes’ individuals at several stages of the fruit’s production, from farmers to executives. The compounding of this extorted money makes up a good part of the reason as to why the savory green fruit is so expensive. Individuals who do not comply with the cartels’ demands are physically assaulted, or even killed. Most farmers initially welcomed the cartels, who gave them services such as land, security, and low interest loans in exchange for minor fees. However, the cartels became avaricious as time progressed, hiking their protection fees, while simultaneously withdrawing their services. In some regions, cartels also forcibly took over land to control production entirely.
Larger cartels may also use the income generated through the avocado trade to finance drug smuggling operations. Mexico’s drug problem has seen an unprecedented return, owing to the emergence of new age synthetic opiates, and the ease of production of fentanyl via precursors. Cartels have doubled down on the avocado supply chain to re-enter the fray, with violence increasingly being used to enforce authority. It is not uncommon for Mexican officials to discover bodies on farms that were seemingly left there without a trace. The cartels don't shy away from the murders either. In 2019, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a cartel local to Michoacán, killed nineteen people in the city of Uruapan, hanging nine bodies from an overpass, dumping seven on the side of a road, and a further three bodies dismembered and scattered across the city. Some of the bodies were found with banners, with the cartel claiming that the individuals were helping rival gangs, and that anyone who followed would meet a similar end.
On February 11, 2022, the US issued a temporary ban on Mexican avocado imports. The ban came into force after an USDA inspector was sent a threatening message on his official cell phone while he was in Mexico to inspect produce. This was preceded by a similar incident in 2019. The USDA warned that the ban would be in place as long as it needed to be, that is, until US envoys were guaranteed safety. However, this ban lasted only two weeks, since the country was heavily reliant on Mexico for avocado imports. The USDA assured the public that it had taken measures to control the situation, although it remains unspecified as to what these measures were.
The Mexican government has agreed to strengthen security for inspectors, and the Association of Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico, a nonprofit organization that represents 30,000 avocado farmers and 74 packing houses in Michoacán, released a statement following the incident. They promised to create an “intelligence and security unit” within the association to address the problem while minimizing the impact on exports. Both countries agreed to the association’s proposal, and it continues to uphold its status as the only Mexican association cleared to export avocados to the US.