US hands over pest inspections of Mexican avocados to Mexico and California growers aren’t happy

MEXICO CITY (AP) — California avocado growers are furious this week over a U.S. decision to turn over pest inspections of Mexican orchards to the Mexican government.

Inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been monitoring imports of avocados infected with insects and diseases since 1997. In Mexico, however, they have also been threatened in recent years for refusing to certify misleading shipments.

Threats and violence against inspectors have caused the U.S. to suspend inspections in the past. California growers wonder whether Mexican inspectors are better able to withstand such pressure.

“This action reverses the long-standing inspection process designed to prevent invasions of known pests into Mexico that would devastate our industry,” the California Avocado Commission wrote in an open letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Monday.

Inspectors currently work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, better known as APHIS. Because the United States also grows avocados, U.S. inspectors are surveying orchards and packing houses in Mexico to ensure that exported avocados do not contain pests that could harm U.S. crops.

“It is well known that their physical presence greatly reduces the opportunity for others to abuse the system,” the avocado commission wrote. “What assurances can APHIS give us that the unilateral reversal of the process will be equal to or better than what has protected us?”

The letter continued: “We would like specific information regarding why you have concluded that replacing APHIS inspectors with Mexican government inspectors is in our best interest.”

The decision was announced last week in a brief statement from Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, which said that “with this agreement, the U.S. Health and Safety Agency recognizes the dedication of Mexican producers, who have not had any sanitary problems in exports in more than 27 years.”

The idea that there are no problems is far from the truth.

In 2022, inspections were halted after one of the U.S. inspectors was threatened in the western state of Michoacan, where growers are routinely extorted by drug cartels. Only the states of Michoacan and Jalisco are certified to export avocados to the United States.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported at the time that the inspector had received a threat “against him and his family.”

The inspector had “questioned the integrity of a particular shipment and refused to certify it based on specific issues,” the USDA statement said. Some packers in Mexico are buying avocados from other, uncertified states and trying to pass them off as coming from Michoacan.

Sources said at the time that the 2022 threat involved a grower who demanded an inspector certify more avocados than his orchard could physically handle, suggesting that at least some had been smuggled in from elsewhere.

And in June, two USDA workers were attacked and temporarily detained by assailants in Michoacan, leading the U.S. to suspend inspections in Mexico’s largest avocado-producing state.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not immediately respond to questions about the reason for the decision or whether it was related to the threats.

Mexico currently supplies about 80 percent of U.S. imports of the fruit. U.S. growers cannot meet the country’s entire demand, nor can they provide fruit year-round.