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The avocado harvested today by Adolfo Aguilar will be sold in a store in New York in less than 48 hours. All the production of the five-hectare orchard in Tancítaro -the world capital of the fruit- is exported through the U.S. packing firm Calavo, the largest in the region.
"It has been a good year," said Adolfo, "the best since I can remember."
The Super Bowl, on February 7, is the day of the year in which more avocados are eaten worldwide. Last year over 50,000 tons of avocados were eaten as “guacamole” while the New England Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks. That amount could fill more than 250 Olympic pools.
Adolfo's harvest is sold in advance. In 2013 he stopped paying an extortion fee of 1,000 pesos (US$54) per hectare to the Knights Templars, a criminal group that killed his neighbor and burned Agroexport, a packing company to which he sold his product in 2012. Since 2013, the self-defense group of Tancítaro, to which Adolfo belongs, helped restore peace in the area.
More than 12,000 small Mexican producers, most of them with less than five hectares like Adolfo, produce eight out of every 10 avocados eaten in the United States.
In an article published by the Washington Post on January 22, 2015 entitled “The rise of the avocado, America's new favorite fruit” Robert A. Ferdman wrote that Hass avocados, “which make up more than 95% of all avocados consumed in the U.S., soared to a record of nearly 1.9 billion pounds (or some 4.25 billion avocados) last year, more than double the amount consumed in 2005 and nearly four times as many sold in 2000.”
Michoacán produces more than half of the avocados eaten in the world, according to the Association of Avocado Producers and Exporting Packers of Michoacán (APEAM), which brings together more than 12,000 producers and 40 packers.
Over 600,000 tons of avocado were exported in 2014, mainly to the United States. According to APEAM estimates, avocado industry employs more than 300,000 people and produces more than 50% of Michoacán's agricultural GDP.
However, homicide rates are increasing in Michoacán, new criminal groups have emerged in recent months and in some parts of the state, producers say that extortion has returned.
On January 31, 2014 the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled: “The Violent Gang Wars Behind Your Super Bowl Guacamole” in which Raúl Benitez, a security expert at UNAM, said: “They are blood avocados. They are the Mexican equivalent of the conflict diamonds that are sold from war-torn parts of Africa”.
The article added that “one local official estimated that the Knights Templar made US$150 million a year extorting growers and packers, as well as selling avocados from the 5,000 acres they took from farmers.”
