Mexican Avocados to Return Despite State Growers’ Fears

The U.S. plans to lift a 90-year-old ban on importing Hass avocados from Mexico into California, over the strenuous objections of the state’s growers, who say an infestation of bugs from south of the border could damage their orchards.

The arrival of the Mexican-grown fruit in California, scheduled to begin in 2007, could reduce prices for consumers. But it could also slash state growers’ sales by as much as 20%, according to federal estimates.

Under new rules issued Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would allow Mexico to ship avocados to all 50 states year-round.

Previous regulations limited Mexican avocados to 31 Northern and Midwestern states far from the nation’s avocado-growing regions. What’s more, imports were confined to between Oct. 15 and April 15, when the population of insects that could damage the U.S. crop thins out.

Officially, the ban on Mexican avocados was based on a fear of the pests hitching rides into the U.S. on imported fruit. But Mexican growers charged that the restrictions were merely a form of economic protectionism and a violation of free-trade agreements.

The impending influx of Mexican avocados is part of a broader trend in which looser trade rules, coupled with rising demand for fresh produce, have cut into the U.S.’s historic position as a net exporter of agricultural products.

This year, the USDA projects, farm exports will fall 10% to $56 billion, while imports will rise 6.3% to $56 billion, leaving the nation without an agricultural trade surplus for the first time since 1959. Just a decade ago, the U.S. regularly posted farm trade surpluses above $20 billion.

“This is what happens when people want to buy blueberries in January,” said Nancy Hirschhorn, a USDA economist. “They have to be imported.”

In the eyes of critics, however, the U.S. is ceding too much of its own farmers’ turf, without doing enough to pry open markets abroad, where tariffs and duties remain comparatively high.

“We have signed all these free-trade agreements with countries that export to the United States but provide very few market opportunities for us,” said Bob Schramm, a produce industry lobbyist in Washington.

Avocado exports to 47 states are set to start at the end of January. At the request of growers, the primary avocado-producing states of California, Florida and Hawaii will remain closed for another two years.

California is by far the largest producer in the U.S., supplying about nine out of 10 of the nation’s avocados. The state is home to 6,500 growers, who produced 430 million pounds last year with a value of $380 million, according to the Irvine-based California Avocado Commission.

On average, Americans each eat about 2.5 pounds annually of avocado -- the basic ingredient in guacamole.

The import rules apply only to the popular Hass variety, which accounts for more than 90% of fresh avocados in the U.S.

In California, avocado farmers say they are less worried about U.S. trade figures than they are about Mexican insects.

Growers are particularly concerned about three types of weevils and one moth species that are common in Mexico but are not seen in California orchards.

“This really scares me,” Chuck Keagle, who farms an eight-acre Hass orchard in Upland, said Wednesday as word of the USDA’s rule changes shot through the industry.

A weevil infestation nearly wiped out California’s avocado industry in the mid-20th century, Keagle said, forcing many growers to burn their orchards and replant.

Yet a USDA analysis found that under current sanitary regulations, fewer than 400 infested avocados would cross into the U.S. each year after the trade rules were relaxed, and no more than a dozen infested avocados would have to be discarded in a producing region.

Moreover, the USDA said, a most unlikely set of circumstances would have to unfold for an infestation to occur: The pest would have to survive the trip from Mexico. The infested avocado would have to be tossed near plants that could sustain the insect. The pest would have to avoid being killed by another animal, unfriendly weather or other threats. And finally, it would have to find a mate.

Mexico has long pushed for increased access to the U.S. avocado market, noting that under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement and World Trade Organization rules, the U.S. could continue to bar the fruit only if there were credible evidence showing the threat of pest contamination.

“We’re obviously very happy” with the USDA’s decision, said Benjamin Grayeb Ruiz, president of an avocado trade association based in the Mexican state of Michoacan. “The United States is a very important market for us.”

Grayeb noted that Mexico was the world’s largest producer of avocados, turning out about 1 million tons a year. He said that Mexico exported a little less than 5% of its production annually to the U.S. -- about $52 million worth last year -- a figure that could easily triple in 2005.

According to a USDA analysis, when the restrictions on Mexican avocados are lifted next month, sales of domestic fruit could fall by about 10%, and perhaps as much as 20%, starting in 2007. Exports from Chile, the leading foreign supplier, also are likely to decline.

Shoppers, meanwhile, could see a small price break: The USDA said the average wholesale price of a California avocado would probably drop 15% to $1.26.

Growers said that as long as the bugs stayed away, they were prepared for the heightened competition.

“We already see avocados from Chile imported to all 50 states, and we have been able to deal with that,” Keagle said.

In fact, there’s some evidence that Mexico won’t flood the market with its fruit, said Tom Bellamore, senior vice president of the state avocado commission. Mexico has held back exports to the U.S. this year because of the large inventory of Chilean fruit, he said.

“If demand continues to grow,” Bellamore said, “we will be OK from a competitive standpoint.”

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Times staff writer Marla Dickerson in Mexico City contributed to this report.