As Mexican drug cartels cut in on avocado sales by extorting growers, armed locals fight back

Avocados are known as “green gold” in Mexico, where a multi-billion-dollar industry broke records for exports in 2020 to become the world’s largest producer of the popular fruit.

But as growers’ fortunes have risen, so have threats from drug cartels aiming to sink their teeth into the revenues.

Authorities in the Michoacán state, which grows avocados exported to the United States, have identified at least nine drug cartels there, including the brutal Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG.

And those cartels are eager to get a piece of avocado profits — extorting farmers with the threat of violence.

In response, armed civilians calling themselves “self-defense groups” have sprung up at checkpoints and barricades to protect crops and communities, risking death guarding the land from cartels.

Experts say the industry backs these efforts.

"For a long time, avocado producers have financed and supported the activity of self-defense groups to be able to distribute their product, due to CJNG's invasion,” said Mexico-based security analyst David Saucedo.

But Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador opposes these armed groups.

"Self-defense groups shouldn't exist because the security function belongs to the state,” López Obrador said at a news conference in June. “I don't support people taking arms to face crime because it doesn't have good results and sometimes criminals infiltrate in those groups.”

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Cartels cut in on profitable industry

Standoffs between armed citizens and cartels strain an industry that does big business around the globe.

Worldwide, Mexico’s avocado exports totaled 1.2 million tons from January to November of 2020, a 6.3% increase over the previous year, according to figures from Mexico’s agriculture ministry.

American avocado consumption today has more than quadrupled since 2007, when the U.S. market opened fully to Mexican imports, according to data from the U.S.-based nonprofit marketing organization Avocados from Mexico.

Before 2007, the U.S. imposed an embargo on avocados from Mexico for 80 years because of a pest that threatened U.S. crops.

But the rapidly growing avocado profits have caught the attention of cartels in recent years. In addition to CGNJ, criminal organizations in Michoacán now also include the New Michoacán Family, the old Michoacán Family, the Knights Templar, and the Tepalcatepec, Los Reyes, Correa, Zicuirán and Camaleón cartels.

Michoacán’s proximity to the Pacific Ocean has made the state one of the most important for drug cartels, which seek to make money and bolster their power by interfering in numerous industries.

To cash in on avocado proceeds, they try to extort growers for thousands of pesos in fees.

"It's very attractive," said security analyst Erubiel Tirado. They are "using intimidation to take over that market.”

Locals complain the government response to cartel threats has been minimal — certainly not enough to squelch the criminal activity.

And in the absence of government help, some locals said, they have taken matters into their own hands.

He fled Guatemala looking for a better life. But he and 18 others were killed en route to the US.

Defending communities and crops

Self-defense groups were legalized by the government of former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto as Rural Defense Corps.

The government reached an agreement in 2014 to include armed civilians — with weapons of questionable origin — in Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, into military units to fight the Knights Templars, an organized crime group.

Gradually, more and more self-defense groups formed. People left traditional jobs as farmers and merchants to take periodic shifts basically working as armed guards.

“Pueblos Unidos,” or “United Towns,” was created about a year ago in San José de Chuén, Michoacán, to protect the community and the avocado production there.

The group has nearly 5,000 members in four municipalities, including the avocado-growing region of Ario de Rosales, Michoacán. The Association of Avocado Producers and Packers of the State of Michoacán said they don't recognize this group and declined to comment on the situation.

Although Pueblos Unidos members don’t want to be lumped in with other self-defense groups, they acknowledge that they are prepared to fight cartels such as CJNG and Viagras.

"I've joined because we were tired of extortions, kidnappings, we were tired of working the entire year to pay (drug cartels) their fee," said a masked member wearing a hoodie and holding a rifle, who did not want to be identified because he feared for his safety.

"They threatened us, kidnapped us, took our money, stole our cars, raped our women. They did whatever they wanted. The government never supported us," the man told The Courier Journal. "Based on that, we decided to defend ourselves with our hands and guns. They didn't care if the avocado price was low or high; they wanted their fee twice a year: 50,000 pesos ($2,500 U.S. dollars) per hectare. What we did? Defend ourselves."

The man, who is married with three children, said cartels used to steal up to five trucks a day, carrying an average of 10 tons of avocados.

“It’s cheaper to buy a gun than to pay them a fee," he said.

The man said group members get support from big avocado producers. “Workers come here once a week, and their bosses pay their workday,” he said. “But they come voluntarily. None of us is forced.”

The group’s strategy has worked, members said. They no longer suffer theft, crime, or persecution from criminal groups, another "Pueblos Unidos" member told The Courier Journal.

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"We don't need (the government) to come here. We already cleaned the area. There hasn't been kidnaps, deaths, nothing since we're protecting our community. You can ask anyone in the town to see if they've suffered vandalism or if their avocados have been stolen. That's in the past," the man said from a barricade near an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

But not all groups have succeeded in their efforts.

Clashes have erupted across Michoacán recently between drug cartels and self-defense groups. Saucedo, the security analyst, said some groups can beat well-armed cartels, but others are outgunned.

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Meanwhile, the sheer existence of the groups “speaks about the failure of the Mexican state, of having control over its territory and providing the population with a basic function such as security,” said Tirado, the analyst.

Another concern among citizens and government officials is that self-defense groups could eventually turn into cartels. Many are supported by CJNG rivals hoping to stop that organization, Saucedo said.

“There are self-defense groups that were born as independent groups that over time adopted and integrated into a criminal group,” he said.

Experts said they’d rather see the government do its job than watch such groups continue to spread.

"An ideal world is that self-defense doesn't exist and that the government through the National Guard and the security forces reestablish order and assume their role of guaranteeing the safety of the people,” Tirado said. “But the truth is: That scenario is light years away.”

Karol Suárez is a Venezuela-born journalist based out of Mexico City. Photographer Cristopher Rogel Blanquet contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mexican drug cartels extort local avocado growers with violence