California Avocado Farmers Sound Alarm as Mexican Imports Flood Market
California avocado farmers are in a desperate fight for survival, demanding the Trump administration implement a seasonal tariff rate on Mexican imports to stave off disaster.
“If the trend continues the way it’s going, I mean, we’ve been having some pretty difficult conversations,” said Andy Sheaffer, owner of Vista Punta Gorda farms in Ventura, California.
Sheaffer, with two decades of farming experience, reports a catastrophic price drop due to an overwhelming influx of avocados from Mexico flooding the U.S. market without regulation.
Last year, prices started at over $2 per pound, hitting $2.20 to $2.30. Now, those same avocados sell for just $0.75 to $1.10. “It just fell off a cliff in the latter part of the season,” he stated.
Ken Melban, president of the California Avocado Commission, revealed a staggering decline in growers: from about 6,000 a decade ago to roughly 3,000 today.
High labor costs and stringent water regulations cripple U.S. growers, who struggle to compete with Mexico's zero-tariff avocado imports under the USMCA agreement.
“We’ve elected these politicians who have decided to impose these regulations and these labor cost increases on us because they value that as an important component,” Sheaffer said. “But then, on the flip side, we’re allowing these countries who don’t have that same value system basically unfettered access to our market.”
Sheaffer pays over $20 per hour for permanent farm labor, while workers in Mexico earn around $12 per day.
“Mexico, by the first quarter of this year had brought in excess above their projection 300 million pounds,” Melban stated. “Which is equal to almost our entire season production.”
The U.S. has announced it will not extend its historic trade agreement signed by President Trump during his first term, prompting the Commission to voice urgent concerns for an industry on the brink.
The commission is pushing for federal officials to impose a seasonal Tariff Rate Quota on Mexican avocado imports from March to September, California's primary harvest window.
“The details would have to be zero tariff on the first X amount of pounds coming in,” Melban explained, emphasizing that anything above a certain threshold would incur a “substantial tariff.”
“Minimum 25 percent. I’d like to see 50 percent, because if not, then it just gets included in the cost of doing business across the board,” he added.
Critics claim tariffs would inflate consumer prices, but both Melban and Sheaffer counter that while farmer prices have dropped roughly 50%, grocery store prices remain stable.
“The cost to the consumer won’t go up exorbitantly, just the grocer will not have as high a margin on that particular piece of produce,” Sheaffer asserted.
U.S. trade representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer is set to meet with Mexico starting the week of July 20 for a third round of bilateral negotiations related to the USMCA, while the pact remains fully in place as discussions continue.
Melban remains hopeful that the Trump administration will act to protect American farmers. “I just had a meeting last Tuesday with senior U.S. officials that are all over this,” he said. “I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to figure something out here that works for everybody.”