Nogales--Port for Mexican Crops

They call this the busiest agricultural port in the world.

Half of the fruit and vegetables sold in the United States and Canada from December through May cross the border here in huge trucks and trailers. The vehicles come loaded with Mexican-grown tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, eggplants, string beans, bell peppers and numerous other vegetables, cantaloupes, watermelons, honeydew and other fruit.

$250 Million Wholesale

Up to 500 trucks a day cross the border from four main growing areas in the state of Sinaloa, 600 miles to the south.

That much produce is worth $250 million to $285 million at wholesale, according to George H. Uribe, 61, executive director of the West Mexico Vegetable Distributors Assn.

Trucks roll into the Mexican city of Nogales, just across the border, after 15 to 20 hours on the road from packing houses in the Mexican farming center. All of the trucks stop at the huge docks on the south end of town.

There, 40 Arizona produce inspectors contracted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture methodically go through each produce truck, inspecting its load for grade, size, quality, scars, decay and insects.

“All of the inspectors leave their homes on the American side every morning to cross the border to go to work at the produce docks in Mexico,” explained Charles Everett, 43, director of the inspection station. About 3% to 5% of the vegetables and fruit on the trucks fail to meet U.S. standards and are turned back.

Stan Wasserman, 64, a produce inspector in Nogales for 15 years, checked a truck loaded with 35,000 pounds of squash (wholesale value averaging $5 per 22-pound box, or a total of about $8,000) while Mexican truck drivers Jesus Tamayo, 43, and Juan Jaramillo, 21, leaned against the cab of their truck visiting with other drivers.

After a truckload passes inspection, a U.S. Customs seal--a wire with a gold ball--is affixed to the rear door of the rig so that it may not be reopened until it crosses the U.S. border.

The next stop is a special Customs truck dock on the American side. Here Rafael Gerra, 45, chief U.S. Customs inspector, and 32 of his agents collect duty on the imported produce. The charge varies from crop to crop--1.5 cents a pound for tomatoes, 3.5 cents a pound for cucumbers, cantaloupes 35% of the wholesale value.

The winter season produce that goes through the Nogales gates nets the U.S. government upwards of $40 million in duty payments. American produce distributors must pay the duty for each truckload within 10 days.

$1 Million Annually

The Mexican truck drivers move their rigs a few hundred yards to the Arizona Highways station, where user fees are paid (the state receives $1 million in annual revenue from the Mexican produce trucks) and safety inspections are made.

Then the trucks proceed to Nogales, Ariz., heading for one of 73 companies operating produce warehouses that line both sides of Interstate 19 at the north end of town.

There, all of the produce is removed from the trucks, sorted and reloaded on U.S. trucks for the long journeys to all parts of the United States and Canada.

A fifth of the workers in Nogales are employed at the produce distribution warehouses and at truck stations, hotels, motels and restaurants catering to the truckers, brokers and others involved in moving the food to dinner tables across the land.

Salespeople are busy on telephones around the clock selling tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and cantaloupes to grocery chains, wholesalers, purveyors and jobbers.

“This is the biggest produce deal anywhere in the world in one place,” insisted Kelly Larey, 41, president of the 73-member West Mexico Vegetable Distributors Assn.

“We do all our selling over the phone, talking to buyers throughout America and Canada. It’s accomplished in an old-fashioned way by word of mouth; oral contracts. It’s a highly competitive business based on supply and demand, quality of product (and) reputation.”