MEXICO CITY (AP)– California avocado farmers are fuming today regarding a united state choice to turn over bug examinations of Mexican orchards to the Mexican federal government.
Inspectors worked with by the united state Department of Agriculture have actually been defending against imports of avocados contaminated with bugs and illness because 1997, yet they have actually likewise been endangered in Mexico for declining to accredit misleading deliveries recently.
Threats and violence against inspectors have actually created the united state to put on hold examinations in the past, and California farmers examine whether Mexico’s very own examiners would certainly be much better outfitted to endure such stress.
“This action reverses the long-established inspection process designed to prevent invasions of known pests in Mexico that would devastate our industry,” the California Avocado Commission created in an open letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Monday.
At existing, examiners benefit the united state Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, referred to as APHIS. Because the United States likewise expands avocados, united state examiners observe orchards and loading residences in Mexico to make sure exported avocados do not lug bugs that can injure united state plants.
“It is well known that their physical presence greatly reduces the opportunity of others to game the system,” the avocado payment created. “What guarantees can APHIS offer us that its independent turnaround of the procedure will amount to or far better than what has shielded us?”
The letter added, “We are trying to find specifics regarding why you have actually ended that replacing APHIS examiners with Mexican federal government examiners remains in our benefit.”
The decision was announced last week in a short statement by Mexico’s Agriculture Department, which claimed that “with this agreement, the U.S. health safety agency is recognizing the commitment of Mexican growers, who in more than 27 years have not had any sanitary problems in exports.”
The idea that there have been 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 subject to extortion 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 said at the time that the inspector had received a threat “against him and his family.”
The inspector had “questioned the integrity of a certain shipment, and refused to certify it based on concrete issues,” according to the USDA statement. Some packers in Mexico buy avocados from other, non-certified states, and try to pass them off as being from Michoacan.
Sources at the time said the 2022 threat involved a grower demanding the inspector certify more avocados than his orchard was physically capable of producing, suggesting that at least some had been smuggled in from elsewhere.
And in June, two USDA employees were assaulted and temporarily held by assailants in Michoacan. That led the U.S. to suspend inspections in Mexico’s biggest avocado-producing state.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not immediately respond to questions about why the decision was made, or whether it was related to the threats.
Mexico currently supplies about 80% of U.S. imports of the fruit. Growers in the U.S. can’t supply the country’s whole demand, nor provide fruit year-round.
____
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
The Associated Press
