Feb. 14, 2022
The United States has suspended avocado imports from Mexico because a U.S. plant safety inspector in Mexico used to be threatened, The Associated Press reported.
The suspension started Saturday after the inspector used to be threatened in Michoacán, potentially the most straightforward Mexican deliver authorized to export avocados to the United States.
“U.S. effectively being authorities … made the resolution after one amongst their officers, who used to be accomplishing inspections in Uruapan, Michoacán, got a threatening message on his legitimate mobile phone,” Mexico’s Agriculture Division wrote, per The Associated Press.
The U.S. inspects Mexican avocados to make certain they don’t raise diseases over the border that would perchance perchance maybe bother U.S. vegetation. The inspectors work for the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Companies.
It’s unclear how long the suspension would perchance perchance well final. The U.S. Embassy confirmed the ban on imports, asserting on Twitter, “We’re working with the Mexican executive to guarantee security stipulations that would perchance perchance maybe allow our personnel in Michoacán to resume operations,” The Associated Press stated.
Mexico promotes avocados and guacamole for the Mammoth Bowl, however the avocados extinct for that Sunday recreation were shipped sooner than the suspension.
Avocado growers in Mexico had been targeted by drug cartels. After a the same incident in 2019, the United States told Mexico it would perchance perchance well slump the import program if inspectors’ safety would perchance perchance well now not be ensured, The Associated Press stated.
On Monday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated the suspension used to be a conspiracy against Mexico by political and economic pursuits, The Associated Press reported.
“In all of this there are moreover rather diverse political pursuits and political pursuits, there is competition; they don’t need Mexican avocados to earn into the United States, factual, because it would rule within the United States as a consequence of its quality,” López Obrador stated.
“There are other countries that are attracted to promoting avocados, as within the case of different farm products, so they foyer, they behold senators, expert public (relations) folks and agencies, to effect aside up barriers.”
About 90% of avocado imports to the U.S. come from Mexico, the Associated Press stated, with the U.S. rising about half of the avocados it consumes
The Avocado Institute of Mexico says that U.S. per capita consumption of avocados increased from 1.5 kilos to 7.5 kilos from 1998 to 2017.
