Certainly a possibility.
On the other hand, it’s not unknown for organized crime to be involved in legal businesses as well as illicit ones. They might have wanted legit avocado farming. Or maybe they want a legit business to help with money laundering. Who knows for sure? Not me.
I have no actual idea, but I wonder if it was more of a threat based on the inspector rejecting too many avocados or something like that- I can see how criminals might not take kindly to some inspector saying that they can’t sell certain avocados, because they’re too small, or low quality, or old, or whatever.
Well, like I said - this may not have come from on-high, it could be a mid-level guy getting a little too independent/uppity.
I’m not doubting you a bit, but could you please provide a link so I could read more about this? I’m intrigued. Or maybe you’re referring to the drug cartels demanding protection money from farmers, as this NPR article says?
Many avocado growers in Michoacán say drug gangs threaten them or their family members with kidnapping or death unless they pay protection money, sometimes amounting to thousands of dollars per acre.
and
The avocado ban was just the latest threat to Mexico’s export trade stemming from the government’s inability to rein in illegal activities.
Or is there more to it that that? Anyway, I’d like to learn more about this, so if you happen to have a link, I’d be grateful.
I don’t have an internet link handy, sorry - I’ve been watching this with news stuff, yes, NPR’s thing, a documentary, and few other sources I’d have to hunt around for to get a link to. Don’t have time at the moment, sorry.
My dear Americans, I am sorry to be the one bringing this news to you, but avocado is actually a linguistical corruption of either the French avocat or of the Italian avvocato, both meaning not the slimy fruit (when it is not hard and insipid as a raw potato) but lawyer. I can understasnd that you like to eat corrupt lawyers, not what I would do, but OK, you be you. You have too many of them anyway. On toast, of course, I get it. But the correct name for this fruit is aguacate.
That the most commercially popular cultivar of the aguacate worldwide (and in the USA) is the Hass-variety does not make it any better. Hass is German for hate.
Since having my avocado toast fund freed up for more practical things, I’ve already paid off all my debt and bought a house. I think tomorrow, I’ll go ahead and have children, buy some diamonds, and perhaps stop killing the decorative plate industry.
For once the corruption was not on our part. We called it avocado because that was, in fact, the Spanish word and the Spanish spelling. The alteration happened much earlier, according to this:
edible, oily fruit of a tree common in the American tropics, 1763, from Spanish avocado, altered (by folk etymology influence of earlier Spanish avocado “lawyer,” from same Latin source as advocate (n.)) from earlier aguacate, from Nahuatl (Aztecan) ahuakatl “avocado” (with a secondary meaning “testicle” probably based on resemblance), from proto-Nahuan *pawa “avocado.”
OK… now they’re even less appetizing than they were before…
This. I love avocado toast, and salad, and guac, and… Anyway, I’m willing to give it up if the price we must pay includes violence done to the inspectors. The cartels need to know that there’s a limit to bullying and violence.
Hey, hey, hey! I can see going nuclear if someone takes away my avocado toast!
Maybe, but I doubt the accuracy of that site when they claim that avocado is Spanish for lawyer. Spanish for lawyer is abogado. But the bits with the testicles and the alligator-pear are funny, so OK.
I’m impressed that you know exactly how many avocados you buy each year. Pre- covid, and post.
Me, I can’t put a number on it… but I buy a bunch of 'em.
But then, half the time they’re not ripe enough when I want 'em, so I let 'em sit on the counter top. And then the next time I want 'em, they’re over-ripe.
Now, if those cartel mafia guys could grow an avocado that stays ripe when you need it, I’d gladly pay the protection money. 
Having worked for the UK equivalent, what they’re mostly inspecting for is pests and diseases so they’re not accidentally imported along with the crop, industry tends to mainly take care of the grading by size or whatever.
What this means is that entire batches can and will get rejected even if it’s otherwise looking perfect, because, say, someone found a specific bug listed as a quarantine pest on it, and its not feasible to check every single fruit in the 20 tonne batch for signs of larvae. So yeah, it is possible for inspections to cost someone a lot of money when they weren’t expecting it.
Ugh, just when i was contemplating going back on keto. When I was on keto in the past avocados were a staple-- I know the term “superfood” is overused, but they are low in carbs and high in healthy fats so they keep away hunger and don’t raise insulin levels. They are full of fiber and have more Potassium than a banana.
Plus, guacamole is frickin’ awesome.
We enjoyed an avocado on our salads last night, leaving us with three.
It doesn’t help that the lifecycle of an avocado is approximately:
Date of purchase until 2 days later: Not ripe yet
20 minute window: Perfectly ripe!!
20 minute window expires: maybe I can salvage 10% of this avocado in-between the black spots…
Plus all my Spanish-speaking life I’ve referred to this produce as “aguacate”. No way of knowing why would some Iberian dude back in the 1700s be calling them “lawyers” (really, guys: don’t eat the moldy hardtack).
My words precisely, I concur.
This is going to be a huge problem for me. I’ve always got an avocado ladder going with avocados of three different purchase dates. It’ll take around 10 days or two weeks for it to empty but if I don’t start replenishing even if the shortage only lasts a couple of weeks I’ll be stuck with green as grass avocados.