URUAPAN, Mexico - On a sweltering July afternoon, two large yellow bulldozers dug into the brown soil at the bottom of a lush avocado orchard near the small town of Madero, located in central Mexico's Michoacan state.
The environmental damage has prompted U.S. nonprofit the Organic Consumers Association to file lawsuits against unlisted West Pak Avocado Inc and another major avocado importer Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc for labeling Mexican avocados as "sustainable" or "responsibly sourced." Climate Rights International identified these two orchards as having sold avocados to West Pak as recently as December and January, according to Mexican government shipping records, also reviewed by Reuters.
In February, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said avocados sourced from illegal orchards should be blocked from the U.S. market. There has been no government action from either Washington or Mexico to do so. One Madero farmer, who asked to remain anonymous due to concerns for his safety, said he was was kidnapped after he protested deforestation. "If they only knew ... behind every avocado that people in the United States eat, there is a bloodstain, a dead person, a missing person," he said.
"They have even gone to destroy avocado orchards," said Claudia Alejandra Sanchez, an activist for Michoacan's Purepecha indigenous people. The two importers' avocados landed on the shelves of U.S. supermarkets, the Climate Rights International's findings showed. Most of those companies have publicly pledged to adhere to sustainable supply chains in compliance with local laws.
"About eight or ten years ago it was pure wilderness here," said Madero's environmental director Savas Melchor Gomez, standing in front of the orchard's trees. "They set the mountains on fire to clear them and continue expanding, and it goes on and on."
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