Feb. 14, 2022
The USA has suspended avocado imports from Mexico because a U.S. plant safety inspector in Mexico became once threatened, The Linked Press reported.
The suspension started Saturday after the inspector became once threatened in Michoacán, the single Mexican grunt authorized to export avocados to the US.
“U.S. health authorities … made the resolution after one of their officials, who became once carrying out inspections in Uruapan, Michoacán, got a threatening message on his respectable cellular phone,” Mexico’s Agriculture Department wrote, in accordance to The Linked Press.
The U.S. inspects Mexican avocados to be certain they don’t carry diseases over the border that would damage U.S. vegetation. The inspectors work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services and products.
It’s unclear how lengthy the suspension also can final. The U.S. Embassy confirmed the ban on imports, announcing on Twitter, “We are working with the Mexican authorities to make sure security conditions that would allow our personnel in Michoacán to resume operations,” The Linked Press acknowledged.
Mexico promotes avocados and guacamole for the Plentiful Bowl, however the avocados dilapidated for that Sunday sport possess been shipped sooner than the suspension.
Avocado growers in Mexico possess been targeted by drug cartels. After a identical incident in 2019, the US urged Mexico it will in all probability well also hunch the import program if inspectors’ safety might per chance per chance no longer be ensured, The Linked Press acknowledged.
On Monday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged the suspension became once a conspiracy against Mexico by political and economic interests, The Linked Press reported.
“In all of this there are moreover a host of political interests and political interests, there might per chance be competition; they don’t desire Mexican avocados to find into the US, correct form, because it would rule in the US on yarn of its quality,” López Obrador acknowledged.
“There are other worldwide locations that are drawn to promoting avocados, as in the case of other farm products, in grunt that they foyer, they detect for senators, legit public (relatives) people and companies, to place up obstacles.”
About 90% of avocado imports to the U.S. come from Mexico, the Linked Press acknowledged, with the U.S. growing about half of the avocados it consumes
The Avocado Institute of Mexico says that U.S. per capita consumption of avocados elevated from 1.5 pounds to 7.5 pounds from 1998 to 2017.
