The U.S. Embassy announced Friday that Washington is lifting a ban on inspections of Mexican avocados, freeing the way for exports to resume.
The suspension of inspections had threatened Mexico's $3 billion annual exports and raised the possibility of prices increasing for U.S. consumers.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said in a statement that the decision came after Mexico and the United States agreed 'to enact the measures that ensure the safety' of agricultural inspectors who are in charge of making sure Mexican avocados don't carry diseases or pests that would harm American orchards.
Salazar did not describe those measures or whether they would address reports of Mexican growers and packers playing fast and loose with sanitary measures designed to protect U.S. production.
The inspections were halted last week after one of the U.S. inspectors was threatened in the western state of Michoacán, where growers are routinely subjected to extortion by drug cartels.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday that the inspector had received a threat 'against him and his family.'
A worker selects avocados at a packing plant in Uruapan, Mexico, Wednesday, February 16. Mexico has acknowledged that the US government has suspended all imports of Mexican avocados after a US plant safety inspector in Mexico received a threat
A worker selects avocados at a packing plant in Uruapan, Mexico, Wednesday, February 16. Mexico has acknowledged that the US government has suspended all imports of Mexican avocados after a US plant safety inspector in Mexico received a threat
US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar
The US gets the vast majority of its avocados from Mexico. Without the imports, it's force to rely on California for the green fruit, which typically provides only 13 percent of the supply
It said the inspector had 'questioned the integrity of a certain shipment, and refused to certify it based on concrete issues.'
Michoacán is the only Mexican state certified as pest-free and able to export avocados to the U.S. market. There have been frequent reports that some packers in Mexico are buying avocados from other, non-certified states and trying to pass them off as being from Michoacán.
'I am pleased to report that today the U.S. Department of Agriculture´s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service has determined it will immediately resume its avocado inspection program in Michoacán,' Salazar wrote.
The service said Friday that 'avocado exports to the United States have resumed.'
The week-old ban had already been taking a toll on avocado pickers in Michoacán, who stood on a roadside this week outside the city of Uruapan asking for donations after they lost their work.
A client chooses fresh avocados at Michoacán market in Mexico City, Monday, February 14. Mexico's president says a US suspension on avocado imports and recent environmental complaints are part of a conspiracy against his country by political or economic interests, after the US suspended imports of Mexican avocados following a threat against a US plant safety inspector in Mexico
Avocado prices have reached $26.23 per nine-kilogram box, the standard of transportation
Holding up signs saying 'Voluntary donations' and 'We make our living off avocado picking,' they waited for motorists to drop spare change into buckets they held.
There were signs that supplies may have tightened since the inspection suspension was announced last Saturday and that the damage to Mexico's violence-plagued avocado industry might be lasting: It could prompt companies that import avocados to look beyond Mexico, which currently supplies about 92% of U.S. imports of the fruit.
Peru, Colombia and Chile already ship avocados to the United States, but in quantities that are only a tiny fraction of Mexico's production. That may change.
'I was talking with a few buyers of avocado domestically, and on toward the future, they they know they need to diversify suppliers,' said Miguel Gómez, professor of applied economics and management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.
'The issue is that they realized that it would be very risky to depend on a single source.'
Exports from Mexico were largely responsible for the huge increase in U.S. avocado consumption in recent decades because they made the fruit available year-round, most famously during the Super Bowl.
Avocados from Mexico are for sale at a grocery store in Lyndhurst, New Jersey
U.S. per capita consumption of avocados tripled since 2001 to 8 pounds per person in 2018
U.S. per-capita consumption of avocados tripled since 2001 to eight pounds per person in 2018.
The Mexican harvest is January through March, while U.S production runs from April to September.
While there is concern about the deforestation and violence that have resulted from the avocado boom in Michoacán, it is unclear whether Americans would be willing to pay more for avocados produced by growers who do not pay protection money demanded by drug cartels in Michoacán.
The connection to U.S. consumers is hardly theoretical: That protection money goes to the same cartels flooding the United States with deadly fentanyl pills counterfeited to look like Xanax, Adderall or Oxycodone. Synthetic opioid overdoses killed about 60,000 Americans last year.
'It's requiring Americans to really ask themselves, do they want to pay more to have a quality product or do they want to kind of look the other way and be able to slice their toast accordingly?' said Desirée LeClercq, a professor of employment law at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
'And I think that consumers are becoming more educated on how these products are made. But whether or not that's going to trickle into consumer behavior, I think has yet to be seen.'
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