The United States paused safety inspections for avocados and mangos from a top-producing Mexican state due to a security incident involving U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) staff, a spokesperson for the agency said on Monday.

The spokesperson said Mexican exports from the western state of Michoacan have not been blocked, and avocados and mangos already in transit would not be affected by the suspension of inspections, which would be paused “until further notice.”

A prolonged suspension to the avocado inspections in particular could cause a significant hit to one of Mexico’s top farm exports, which have steadily grown in popularity with U.S. consumers in recent years.

A government source in Michoacan told Reuters the temporary suspension was triggered last Saturday following an incident at a protest in support of local police in the municipality of Paracho.

  • @talEnglish
    6•11 days ago

    Michoacan

    I don’t know if it’s directly related, but it sounds like the election earlier this month apparently saw significant amounts of violence in the state of Michoacan.

    https://insightcrime.org/news/mexico-extreme-election-violence-explained/

    By the time voters elected Claudia Sheinbaum as Mexico’s first female president, election observers recorded 129 political violence events targeting officials during local, state, and federal elections, for which more than 20,000 posts were up for grabs when campaigning started in early September 2023, according to data collected by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).

    The scale of violence, which included 102 political assassinations, as well as kidnappings, forced disappearances, attempted murders, and attacks on family members, campaign staff, and official infrastructure like ballot boxes, made this election season particularly concerning, Tiziano Breda, ACLED’s Associate Analysis Coordinator for Latin America, told InSight Crime.

    “The violence was due to two main reasons: the magnitude of the election, with it being the biggest in the country’s recent history, and it’s also the consequence of how Mexico’s criminal landscape has evolved into a growing number of fractured groups with diverse economic portfolios competing for influence, and therefore exacerbating violence,” he said.

    Past elections have also been marked by extreme violence. The country logged 145 politically motivated murders of individuals directly linked to the electoral process during the 2018 presidential election and 88 during the 2021 gubernatorial elections, according to data compiled by the Mexican think tank Laboratorio Electoral.

    Just five states — Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, Oaxaca, and Veracruz — accounted for half of all election-related violence logged by ACLED this year, which overwhelmingly targeted those vying for local political office.