Your guacamole may be helping Mexican cartels while US farmers pay the price
Mexico shipped 670,000 tons in six months. Michoacan needed 1,500 troops. A California grove still waits in line.
Summary
- A Fox News opinion piece notes California has nearly 3,000 avocado growers contributing about $1.5 billion a year, while Mexico shipped 670,026 metric tons of avocados into the United States in the first half of 2026, a 34 percent jump from a year earlier.
- Mexico's largest producing region resumed U.S. shipments after a security crisis halted American inspection work. Mexico deployed more than 1,500 soldiers and National Guard to protect orchards, packers, inspectors, trucks, and routes, the third such suspension in Michoacan in recent years.
- Michoacan remains under a U.S. Level 4 Do Not Travel advisory. One producer told the Associated Press he pays an extortion fee on every kilogram, more than $5,000 a day. Cartels have been accused of taxing the crop.
- California growers warned that a late-2024 Biden-era change to USDA APHIS orchard inspections, after security incidents against U.S. personnel, weakened oversight. More than 150 pest interceptions have since been recorded at Mexican packing facilities.
Commentary
A California grower still wipes grit off a crate and smells the grove after a night of irrigation. He does not get a brunch photo if a Michoacan kilo pays a cartel window. He gets a price that cannot beat a taxed mountain of imports.
That is the gap. Six hundred seventy thousand tons in half a year. Fifteen hundred troops to move fruit. Five thousand dollars a day in extortion on one farm. The honest dad buys the cheaper tub. The cartel invoices the kilo.
Look every mother making lunch in the eye and answer this: if a Level 4 state needs an army to ship guacamole, who still calls that a grocery choice?
Comments
A Level 4 travel warning on the orchard is not a farm stand. It is a checkpoint with a produce stamp.
I paid a tax once. Fifteen hundred troops to guard a packing house is a war tax on a sandwich.
Put American inspectors back in the grove. A late-2024 APHIS retreat is how 150 pests walk in.
Food security is national security. A cartel invoice on a kilo is a second supply chain we should not fund.
Watch the 34 percent jump against 3,000 California growers. Volume is the weapon.
I pack a lunch at 5 a.m. I did not vote to tip a plaza boss with a ripe fruit.
Buy the California sticker when you can. A cheap tub is not cheap if it funds a kidnapping map.
Cartels already own the plaza. Do not hand them the produce aisle too.
Fox printed 670,026 tons, 1,500 troops, $5,000 a day, and 150 pest hits. Argue those nouns.
Restore U.S. orchard inspection. Label the origin. Stop paying a cartel with a grocery cart.
