Blood avocados: Inside the cartel violence behind America's favorite fruit

Every year, Americans consume nearly 3 billion pounds of avocados. About 80% of those come from a single Mexican state: Michoacán. And behind the creamy flesh of your morning toast or Super Bowl guacamole lies one of Mexico's most violent economies.

The connection between drug cartels and avocados isn't intuitive. But when you follow the money, it makes brutal sense.

Why cartels turned to avocados

For decades, Mexican cartels made their fortunes trafficking heroin to the United States. Then fentanyl changed everything.

The synthetic opioid, 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, flooded American markets starting around 2015. It was cheaper to produce, easier to smuggle, and devastatingly effective at capturing market share from Mexican heroin. By 2019, opium prices in the poppy-growing regions of Guerrero had collapsed by 50%.

Cartels needed new revenue streams. They found one growing in the volcanic soil just next door.

According to recent research, the decline in heroin demand directly increased homicide rates and violent thefts in avocado-growing municipalities. As poppy regions grew quieter, avocado country grew deadly. The same cartels that had perfected drug trafficking now applied their infrastructure to what locals call "green gold," an industry moving over $3 billion annually in exports.

How the extortion machine works

The system is methodical. Cartels charge farmers monthly protection fees, known as "cuotas" or "derecho de piso." Depending on the area and the cartel, these fees range from $50 to $500 per hectare monthly. Some farmers report paying $2,500 per hectare to groups like Los Viagras.

Those who refuse face escalating consequences: threats, kidnappings, torture, death.

One farmer in Ario de Rosales told Mexican media it had become "commonplace to find bodies on his land." In 2019, 19 people were found hanging from an overpass, piled beneath a pedestrian bridge, or dumped on roadsides in various states of dismemberment in what authorities linked to cartel battles over the avocado trade.

The extortion doesn't stop at farms. Cartels control transportation routes, demanding fees from truckers. They infiltrate packing plants, skimming profits before avocados ever reach export containers. According to the University of Maryland's Tracking Cartels project, at least four truckloads of avocados are stolen daily in Michoacán.

The cartels behind the violence

Multiple criminal organizations compete for control of Michoacán's avocado economy. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), now considered Mexico's most powerful criminal organization, has been particularly aggressive. But they're not alone. The Nueva Familia Michoacana, the Tepalcatepec Cartel, and various splintered groups all fight for their share.

When farmers find themselves in contested territories, they often face demands from several groups simultaneously.

The CJNG's reputation for extreme violence serves a strategic purpose. In one notorious incident, the cartel massacred 19 members of a rival group and displayed their bodies in Uruapan's city center with a message encouraging locals to "be patriotic and kill a Viagra." This isn't random brutality. It's calculated terror designed to ensure compliance.

What happens to those who resist

The consequences of defiance are stark.

In February 2023, Alfredo Cisneros, an Indigenous leader who defended the Purépecha forests of Michoacán, was shot and killed after reporting illegal logging. Activist Guillermo Saucedo, who organized farmer patrols to detect unauthorized orchards, was kidnapped, beaten, and threatened by cartel gunmen in December 2021.

In the small town of Ixtaro, a community leader and his brothers were murdered for opposing increased avocado planting, arguing that water shortages would eventually harm all farmers. A woman named Linda, who later fled to the United States, lost her brother Willie when he tried to defend them. His body showed signs of torture.

The pattern is consistent. As one Indigenous community leader told investigators, "If you point the finger or talk, they'll kill you."

The rise of farmer militias

When the Mexican government failed to protect them, some farmers took up arms.

In 2020, a group called Pueblos Unidos formed in four municipalities southwest of Morelia. Within eight months, approximately 3,000 avocado and blackberry producers had armed themselves with high-powered weapons, establishing checkpoints to drive out cartel members. "It's cheaper to buy a rifle than to pay extortion," one member explained.

The group has had notable successes, driving Los Viagras from several communities. But these vigilante movements, known as "autodefensas," have a complicated history. A similar uprising in 2013-2014 successfully routed the Knights Templar cartel, but some autodefensas later evolved into criminal organizations themselves.

"Even in the case of the 'good vigilantes,' the natural progression of gaining power is usually to end up becoming what was resisted in the first place," noted security researcher Rodrigo Canales.

When violence touched American soil

The violence has repeatedly threatened to disrupt the lucrative U.S. supply chain.

In February 2022, just before the Super Bowl, the U.S. government temporarily suspended all avocado imports from Mexico after a USDA inspector received a death threat while working in Uruapan. It wasn't the first incident. In 2019, a team of inspectors was robbed at gunpoint. In 2020, a Mexican employee of the USDA was killed near Tijuana.

The ban lasted about a week. The avocados kept flowing.

In June 2024, inspections were paused again after two USDA inspectors were reportedly held against their will. Mexico's government scrambled to implement new security measures each time, but the underlying conditions remain unchanged. American consumers continue to devour avocados at a rate of about seven pounds per person annually, largely unaware that major retailers source from Michoacán, potentially becoming unwitting actors within a cartel supply chain.

The environmental destruction

Beyond violence, the avocado boom has devastated Michoacán's environment.

An estimated 17,000 acres of forest are cleared annually to plant avocado orchards in the state. Much of this logging is illegal, backed by cartels who use their control to seize Indigenous lands and establish new plantations. Avocado trees require roughly twice as much water as natural forest. Farmers tap local springs, wells, and streams until rivers run dry. Lake Pátzcuaro has shrunk to about half its original size. Lake Cuitzeo, one of Mexico's largest freshwater lakes, has nearly dried up entirely.

In April 2024, desperate subsistence farmers in Villa Madero began hiking into the hills to physically tear out irrigation pumps. "We are running a serious risk of them killing us for protesting," said Francisco Gómez Cortés. "Out of necessity, we are doing what the government should be doing."

Perhaps the most poignant casualty involves the monarch butterfly. Michoacán's pine forests serve as critical hibernation habitat for monarchs migrating from the United States and Canada. As avocado orchards creep into buffer zones around these reserves, conservationists worry about the species' survival. Climate change may accelerate the threat as warming temperatures make higher elevations suitable for cultivation.

Why government efforts keep failing

Mexico's government has proven unable to curb cartel infiltration of the avocado sector. Corruption runs deep, with cartels bribing officials, issuing permits, and operating with near-impunity.

President Claudia Sheinbaum has focused anti-cartel efforts primarily on fentanyl trafficking and migration, responding to pressure from the Trump administration. These policies have strained diplomatic relations without addressing the structural conditions enabling rural extortion.

Some Indigenous communities have found success through alternative models. The town of San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro developed community-controlled avocado farming that shares profits, enforces environmental rules, and has resisted cartel incursion. The community of Cherán banned avocado cultivation entirely and obtained autonomy to enforce the prohibition. But these are exceptions. The vast majority of Michoacán's avocado industry operates in the shadow of cartel control.

What American consumers should know

Should you stop buying avocados? The answer isn't straightforward.

"This notion of asking consumers to stop buying avocados because farmers are suffering extortion from organized crime is kind of like punishing the victim even more," argues Canales. Boycotts would devastate legitimate farmers who have no choice but to operate under cartel pressure.

Yet continuing to purchase without awareness makes consumers complicit in a system that kills people.

Several Michelin-star chefs have stopped serving avocados entirely. "The environmental disaster, the deforestation caused, to feed the avo-on-toast craze made me feel so disgusted that I decided to stop eating them altogether," wrote Irish chef J.P. McMahon. Others suggest demanding greater transparency from retailers and supporting certification programs that verify ethical sourcing.

What's certain is that every avocado from Michoacán carries costs that don't appear on the price tag: extortion payments embedded in each fruit, farmers who've abandoned their land, bodies left in orchards, dried-up lakes, and cleared forests.

Final thoughts

The term "blood avocados" has emerged for good reason. Like blood diamonds, the label describes commodities whose value is extracted through violence against the most vulnerable people in their supply chains.

Mexico's avocado crisis reveals something uncomfortable about globalized food systems. The same trade liberalization that made avocados cheap and plentiful in American supermarkets created conditions for cartels to capture the industry. The same fentanyl crisis devastating American communities forced cartels to diversify into legal agriculture. American drug demand created the cartels. American avocado demand made them richer. American weapons, flowing south, arm them.

The farmers of Michoacán didn't ask to be caught between drug trafficking organizations and American breakfast preferences. But they're paying the price anyway, sometimes with their lives. What happens next depends on whether consumers care enough to demand change, and whether governments can address root causes rather than symptoms. The cartels are betting they won't.