By Kathleen Bohné
Below you will find an excerpt from the Feb. 27 edition of “La Semana” newsletter. To read more and subscribe, please visit www.themexpatriate.com.
On a family trip to Michoacán in 2019, I remember asking a waiter for guacamole at a restaurant near the bustling, charming town square of Santa Clara del Cobre. He replied with regret: “sorry we don’t have it, no aguacates.” I was taken aback: here, surrounded by thousands of hectares planted with “green gold”, no guacamole? The waiter explained that scarcity (more than half of the crop is exported) and rising prices had made it untenable for locals. How had the fruit become unattainable in its land of origin?
When the U.S. announced it was suspending all avocado imports from Mexico on Feb. 11, the buzz was audible on both sides of the border. In Uruapan, Michoacán, a USDA inspector had received death threats by phone after apparently denying the export permit for a shipment of avocados. “Ordering a drastic, sweeping and immediate measure was the best way to send a message that no matter who was behind the threat, heading in that direction would be costly,” noted an article in El Financiero regarding the U.S. import ban.
Avocados rank as Mexico’s third largest export product (in 2017 their value surpassed petroleum net exports) and Mexican avocados dominate the U.S. market: 76% of imported avocados come from Mexico, and the state of Michoacán is the only one certified to USDA standards. According to the Consultant Group on Agricultural Markets (GCMA), the avocado business provides an estimated 300,000 direct and indirect jobs in Mexico and generated $2.8 billion USD in revenue in 2021. The emergence of any commodity on this scale creates a shadow opportunity, and for the last decade, organized crime has become deeply enmeshed in the cultivation, harvest, packaging and distribution of avocados in Michoacán. Some citizens have formed militias to protect their avocado farms in the face of extorsion and violence. “The empire of avocados is little brother to the empire of heroin,” noted journalist Heriberto Paredes.
Imports were allowed to resume on Feb. 18 after Mexican officials presented an “emergency” plan to their U.S. counterparts that will include the creation of an intelligence unit in the primary avocado-producing municipalities in Michoacán, as well as “additional measures” to guarantee the safety of U.S. inspectors. During “la semana negra”, producers estimated losses of $50 million USD. President López Obrador speculated on ulterior motives behind the suspension in his Feb. 14 morning press conference: “In all of this there are a lot of economic and political interests, there is competition…there are other countries interested in selling avocados.”
Ahuacatl is the Nahuatl name for the fruits of the persea americana tree and is often translated to mean “testicle.” There appears to be some debate among linguists on the accuracy of this: I read one conjecture that the male body part was named for the fruit, not the other way around. The avocado fruit, technically a large berry, appears to some biologists to have evolved with mega-fauna, herbivores large enough to have consumed the entire fruit and excreted the single large seed. While the avocados lost the mammoths and giant ground sloths to extinction, their evolution took an interesting turn when discovered by millennials: in the U.S. alone, per capita annual consumption grew from 2 pounds to 9 pounds between 2001 and 2020. What’s not to love? Loaded with monounsaturated fats, vitamin E and fiber, versatile in the kitchen—avocado mousse anyone?—and simply delicious. They sell themselves…though they also have a massive PR team that has pushed guacamole as the essential appetizer at every Superbowl party and as the best topping for every piece of sourdough toast. Avocados are so irresistible they unite football fans and hipsters.
The environmental consequences of this green gold fever have been far-reaching. “One of the greatest signs of this drastic alteration has been the zoning changes,” notes a report in Gatopardo. “Land and forests have been legally—and sometimes illegally—transformed into areas dedicated to avocado cultivation. The environmental cost of this change is enormous: one avocado tree consumes enough water for eight pine trees.” Analysis by researcher Dr. Benjamín Revuelta at the Universidad Michoacana concludes that up to 80% of avocado farms in Michoacán lack proper environmental permits.
When I gleefully slather avocado on toast, I am reminded of Wendell Berry’s words: “eating is an agricultural act.” No consumption is innocent in our modern world, free from consequences for the land and the people providing for our needs and yes, our desires. As Berry observed: “we learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: how much is enough?”
