The United States government has halted the importing of Mexican avocados from the state of Michoacan after a US Department of Agriculture inspector received threats on his official cell phone, CNN reports. The nature of the threat was not released.
Michoacan is the only Mexican state allowed to export avocados directly to the United States having 135,000 tons of the key ingredient to guacamole in the last six weeks, and its location along the Pacific Ocean in southern Mexico makes it a key territory in the Mexican drug war.
“The APEAM (Association of Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico) is actively participating in coordination with the authorities of both countries to resolve the problem in order to reinforce internal practices and processes that guarantee the traceability of the fruit. The facts mentioned here have already impacted the economy of the entire program, affecting the industry and the more than 300,000 jobs that depend on it. We encourage all those actors in this value chain to take extreme care and vigilance to preserve such an important export program,” the APEAM said in a statement.