U.S. Suspends Avocado Imports From Mexico

Feb. 14, 2022

The United States has suspended avocado imports from Mexico as a result of a U.S. plant security inspector in Mexico was threatened, The Associated Press reported.

The suspension began Saturday after the inspector was threatened in Michoacán, the one Mexican state approved to export avocados to the United States. 

“U.S. health authorities … made the decision after one of their officials, who was carrying out inspections in Uruapan, Michoacán, received a threatening message on his official cellphone,” Mexico’s Agriculture Department wrote, based on The Associated Press.

The U.S. inspects Mexican avocados to verify they don’t carry illnesses over the border that would damage U.S. crops. The inspectors work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services.

It’s unclear how lengthy the suspension may final. The U.S. Embassy confirmed the ban on imports, saying on Twitter, “We are working with the Mexican government to guarantee security conditions that would allow our personnel in Michoacán to resume operations,” The Associated Press mentioned.

Mexico promotes avocados and guacamole for the Super Bowl, however the avocados used for that Sunday sport had been shipped earlier than the suspension.

Avocado growers in Mexico have been focused by drug cartels. After the same incident in 2019, the United States advised Mexico it would droop the import program if inspectors’ security couldn’t be ensured, The Associated Press mentioned.

On Monday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned the suspension was a conspiracy towards Mexico by political and financial pursuits, The Associated Press reported.

“In all of this there are also a lot of political interests and political interests, there is competition; they don’t want Mexican avocados to get into the United States, right, because it would rule in the United States because of its quality,” López Obrador mentioned.

“There are other countries that are interested in selling avocados, as in the case of other farm products, so they lobby, they look for senators, professional public (relations) people and agencies, to put up obstacles.”

About 90% of avocado imports to the U.S. come from Mexico, the Associated Press mentioned, with the U.S. rising about half the avocados it consumes

The Avocado Institute of Mexico says that U.S. per capita consumption of avocados elevated from 1.5 kilos to 7.5 kilos from 1998 to 2017.