America Suspends Avocado Importation From Mexico

The US government has suspended all imports of Mexican avocados indefinitely after a U.S. plant safety inspector in Mexico received a threat from the locals.

Mexico 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.

It was much later that Mexico City acknowledged their fate, saying, the surprise suspension was confirmed late Saturday on the eve of the Super Bowl, which was the biggest sales opportunity of the year for Mexican avocado growers.

According to the Mexico’s Agriculture Department in a statement:  “U.S. health authorities made the decision after one of their officials, who was carrying out inspections in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico, received a threatening message on his official cellphone.”

“The import ban came on the day that the Mexican avocado growers and packers association unveiled its Super Bowl ad for this year. Mexican exporters have taken out the pricey ads for almost a decade in a bid to associate guacamole as a Super Bowl tradition,” the department wrote.

A behind-the-scene report has it that the ban must have come because the United States also grows avocados and would do anything to ensure   exported avocados especially from Mexico do not carry diseases that could hurt U.S. crops.

Avocado exports are the latest victim of the drug cartel turf battles and extortion of avocado growers in the western state of Michoacan, the only state in Mexico fully authorized to export to the U.S. market.

Recall, it was only in 1997 that the U.S. lifted a ban on Mexican avocados that had been in place since 1914 to prevent a range of weevils, scabs and pests from entering U.S. orchards.

Importantly, after a previous incident in 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s had warned about the possible consequences of attacking or threatening their inspectors.

But, in August 2019, a U.S. Department of Agriculture team of inspectors was “directly threatened” in Mexico. While the agency did not specify what happened exactly, local authorities said a gang robbed the truck which the inspectors were traveling in at gunpoint.

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.”

The avocado ban would be the latest threat to Mexico’s export trade, stemming from the government’s inability to rein in illegal activities.