The Green Light

To the Mexicans who tend the giant, fruit-laden trees here in the “Avocado Capital of the World,” life has long been a battle against formidable foes. There were killing frosts. There were droughts.

There were California farmers.

But things are changing. The recent U.S. decision to lift an 83-year-old ban on Mexican avocado imports overrides decades of protests by California growers worried about pest invasions.

Here, in impoverished Michoacan state in central Mexico, where King Avocado once provided steady jobs and fulfilled middle-class dreams, the decision offers a badly needed ray of hope.

“We’ve had difficulties for 10 years. But the last three years have been the most devastating,” says Saul Aguilar, a 50-year-old farmer in a straw cowboy hat, spit-shined boots and pressed Wranglers.

Practically unnoticed by most Americans, the U.S. avocado ban has been a major irritant to Mexican farmers. As in disputes over tomatoes and trucking, the restriction has fueled charges here that Washington is hypocritical on free trade--violating it whenever the U.S. is inconvenienced.

In Michoacan, which is so poor that many of its people flee to work in the U.S., the “avocado war” has deprived Mexican growers of an outlet for their fruit that would have eased the bruises of Mexico’s severe recession of 1995-96.

Here, the fruit has been more than just another crop; it has provided paved roads, bustling shops, well-being.

“This was our green gold,” said Carlos Doddoli, vice

president of the Chamber of Commerce in Uruapan.

Avocados have been a Mexican staple since pre-Columbian times. But large-scale cultivation only began in the 1960s, when farmers introduced the buttery Hass variety, with a tougher skin that made it easier to transport.

As a prospering Mexican public bought more avocados, the industry blossomed into the world’s biggest for the fruit. After all, this is a country where the average citizen eats 19 pounds of avocados annually--as guacamole, in salads and even mashed into ice cream--about a dozen times as much as U.S. citizens.

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The boom brought prosperity to sleepy towns like Uruapan, where youths still ride horseback along the dusty roads. For years, the avocado dream lured thousands of peasants to work in the shady orchards and bustling packing plants.

Here, a farmer like Aguilar, with a high school education, could plunk his savings into 75 acres of avocado trees and eventually own 200--not to mention an interest in a packing plant.

The growth meant some peasants could send their sons to college. Farmers could build homes with Greek-style columns and French mansard roofs--or both, as Aguilar did--and stuff them with pink furniture.

Apparel maker Benetton even set up shop in Uruapan.

The boom times were foreshadowed by modern farming techniques that, according to growers here, long ago eradicated the kind of pest problems that gave rise to the decades-old U.S. ban on avocados from Mexico.

Indeed, Mexico has been shipping avocados to Europe, Japan and Canada for about a decade. Aguilar said his packing plant exports to France and Canada and has never had a pest problem.

“These are arguments that U.S. producers use to keep Mexican agriculture from entering the U.S. market,” Aguilar declared in disgust. “They’re just protecting their market.”

Walking through his cavernous avocado-packing house, Aguilar points out a series of quality-control measures. First, the avocados are scrubbed with brushes by a machine. Then the green fruit are immersed in water and fungicide. Finally, as the avocados drop from a conveyor belt into size-sorted bins, workers inspect them for damage. Once boxed, the avocados are refrigerated.

In recent years, the avocado economy has hit the skids. First, production of avocados climbed so much that prices began to slide. Then came the powerful recession triggered by the December 1994 devaluation of the peso.

Suddenly, interest rates shot to 120%. Prices for imported fertilizers and pesticides soared. Mexicans, their budgets squeezed, stopped buying their cherished avocados. Things got so bad that some of Michoacan’s 9,000 growers were forced to sell their orchards.

“Prices for the fruit were very low. We barely paid our bills,” said Aguilar, who was forced to lay off 15 of his 40 employees.

This was the grim backdrop when residents learned Jan. 31 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, concluding that Mexico’s avocados are clean and acting in the spirit of the North American Free Trade Agreement, decided to nudge open the door to Mexican avocados.

To growers in California, the backbone of the U.S. avocado industry, the news was alarming. Since the U.S. government began studying the opening three years ago, the Californians have battled it fiercely. They protest that Mexican avocados may bear fruit flies, seed weevils and other insects that could threaten the state’s $230-million avocado crop.

“We remain very concerned about our exposure to pest infestation,” said a statement by the California Avocado Commission after the January decision.

The commission added that it suspects that U.S. authorities decided to “trade away the U.S. avocado industry” to gain access into Mexico for other U.S. farm products.

The Department of Agriculture said it didn’t consider Mexican avocados a threat to U.S. crops. But, to be sure, it imposed stiff requirements on growers.

Mexicans agreed to limit exports to 19 mostly Northeastern U.S. states, and only from November through February, when cold weather would tend to kill any pests on the fruit.

In addition, Mexican farmers will have to undergo U.S. government inspections of their orchards and packinghouses and add safeguards ranging from fly traps to tarps over harvested fruit. Mexican growers will pay the cost of stationing USDA inspectors in Mexico.

With such limits, Mexican producers estimate they’ll ship only about 5,000 tons to the United States in the first year, less than 1% of Mexican output.

“After the first few years, if we do our job, and if we don’t have problems, we’ll ask the Department of Agriculture to open up other areas,” said Enrique Bautista, president of the main producers’ group, the Avocado Commission of Michoacan State.

That could mean sharply higher shipments, especially since Mexicans say they can grow avocados for about 25 cents a pound--one-fourth the cost of U.S. production. They say that competition, not pests, is what worries U.S. growers.

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But Mexican growers and experts argue that the United States will benefit from the Mexican avocado. They maintain that the U.S. market will expand with the availability of cheaper fruit--and, eventually, a healthier Mexican industry could employ some of the immigrants who now seek their fortunes in the California fields.

Meanwhile, for the foreseeable future, most Mexican growers are keeping their focus south of the Rio Grande. It will take years to develop the U.S. export market. And to many, the best part about exporting north of the border is simply being able to dispose of excess avocados.

“As a grower, I’m not that interested in the U.S., England or Australia,” Aguilar said. “But with more exports, we’ll have better prices right here.”