Avocados, limes and mangos: how Mexico’s cartels generate profits from our groceries

As fentanyl replaced opium, the cartels accelerated their takeover of agribusiness, triggering violent land grabs, forced dislocation of small farmers, and deforestation

Photo by Kristine Wook on Unsplash

Once a costly and exotic rarity in Canadian grocery stores, avocados from Mexico’s agricultural juggernaut of Michoacan now flood our guacamole-hungry country at the rate of 100,000 tonnes a year, making us major but unwitting customers of Mexico’s most violent cartels.

As fentanyl upended the heroin trade, eliminating t…